Free from sin

Good morning my friends! God is soo good. He reminded me this morning that hey you don't need to sin today. You are free from sin. No longer a slave because I became the master over sin. I defeated sin on the cross. I was the perfect blood sacrifice that shook the bondage of sin and freed every person who believes in me from sin.

It is through Jesus that we will come to know no sin. If we choose.

 Think about it. We are the only thing that is making us sin. Well what about the devil? HE has NO POWER over you! That's why he can only tempt. He can't make you do anything. He has no control over you when you are in the Hands of God!

You are the only thing keeping you from the perfect relationship in Christ. When Christ was on earth He was fully man. FULLY Man. Just like you and I. Jesus paved the way for us to become righteous. We need only focus on God.

Don't focus on not sinning. If you try to do it in your will, you will fail. It's not about your will power. Or your power to do. It's about your diligence to be. It's about how much you love God. The more you love God and get in an intimate relationship with Him, the less you will sin. It's not a natural reaction to sin when you're in a relationship with Him.

I don't know about you, but this a freeing thought!

1 John 3:5 "Jesus came to earth to be the sins of the world and in Him there is no sin".
John 1:29 "look the lamb of God who took away the sins of the world."
2 Corinthians 5:21 "God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that through Him we might become the righteousness of God"

Old yeast vs. New batch

God has been bringing me back to this one passage: 1 Corinthians 5:7 "Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, since you are unleavened. For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed." 

In the verse the old yeast is referring to the ways of the flesh, or different sins that plague our lives and keep us from fully surrendering and being the individuals that God desires for us to be. 

The cleaning out the old yeast required diligence and thorough searching -as the Jews would have done in ridding their house of leavened bread before the passover meal.

God wants you to search your heart for what is keeping you from fully surrendering to God and He wants you to throw it away -never to come back to it again, so you can become NEW and PLEASING to Him!

This isn't a purposeless call. It isn't some rule that we have to follow. It's for our sake. God's wants us to not live in sin, but to live in Him. God wants us to be a new creation -a new batch of bread. But He won't force us to. Instead He wants us to realize that being like Him is the best thing in the world and willfully surrender.

He wants US to throw out old yeast -so we can experience the fullness of being new!

A list of God's plans for us

8/6/12

• God wants us to reach out to Africa and Asia, building, funding, and working with Orphanages and Children's homes
• Provide nonprofit loans to help people adopt children
• provide scholarships to help homeless stay at school over the summer.
• let God provide the money through Robert.

and I think that's so far what God has told us that we will be doing. Will update more as God tells us more. :)

8/6/2012

So today was a bigish day for us.

We are in Marlette staying with my parents and going to Brown City camp...and Robert is commuting back and forth, not doing much of the other two.

However,
He did wake up today with 3 voicemails, and throughout the day received a few more, and so far has 3 interviews lined up for this Friday, so more updates on the job search coming soon.

My neck of the woods has been a bit more exciting.
God has been wanting me to take an altar call as a sign of my complete surrender to Him, except I wasn't taking this lightly and wasn't exactly obeying. I knew this was going to be a switch in ministry time and wanted to make sure I was fully prepared to completely surrender everything to Him. Well, Thursday came, and I didn't take the altar call, Friday came and it was the same result.

Finally over the weekend God began really working on me, to the point that today (Monday) I was completely restless. So I went to Brown City camp with the one goal in mind. The altar call.

I was completely restless the entire sermon, which was really good. It was about missions. Well hey, quite fitting for the day that I had officially decided that nothing was going to keep me from doing the altar call.

I was one of the first ones down to the altar, shaking my way down. (I really don't like people looking at me). and as soon as I hit my knees peace rushed over me. I knew God was pleased with my act of obedience...even though it took me long enough to get there.

This nice random lady, I don't know her name, came and prayed with me and asked me what to pray for and I spilled out the story of what God wanted Robert and I to do. And it was as I was telling her about what to pray for, God told me: it's time to tell people my plans. Well, at least Kim (Robert's mom).

We had a great conversation walking around Brown City camp as I explained to her God's plans for our ministry. And most of she already knew. God had been preparing her to hear, which I think is pretty sweet! But the major scope of it she had no idea about.

So tomorrow I am off to spend more time with Kim at Brown City camp. :)

With love,
Kate

A little history on Robert and my story

Seeing as how I'm not actually planning on publishing this blog until the events God wants Robert and I to be a part of come about, history is a little relative. But as of today 8/5/2012, these events that I am going to write about are our history.

Our story is a really cute story about love, but mostly God's plan and the awesome part we get to play. I've always told people that God "dumbyproofed" our relationship and that He must have big plans for us. That couldn't be more true. God has placed Robert and I together, to be the perfect fit for the plans he has for us, which you already know is going to be great!

So, here's a little bit about how God brought us together...it's kinda mindblowing. :)

You see, I had (have?) this friend named Melissa. She and I were completely inseparable the entire summer after 8th grade (and a little during :)). Now she's inseparable from the story of how Robert and I met. You see, Melissa and I were in love with God. Completely passionate about what He was doing in and for us, and because of that we made a list of the things we wanted to do for God. Honestly, we've pretty much forgotten that list and probably didn't get much accomplished. We did want to start a Bible study during the 8th grade school year, and we succeeded in doing that, but the part that plays a vital role in my story was our decision to become missionaries together.

I've always known I was going to be a missionary of some sort, but I'll get into that in a different post. While Melissa and I haven't become missionaries together (God had a different missions partner in mind), we did go on a missions trip. I still remember the day that Melissa asked me to go on the missions trip with her. She and her family were involved in a traveling puppet show group and they were taking a trip to Mexico. I told her I would talk it over with my parents, not exactly convinced that I wanted to go.

My dad was the one that convinced me to say yes. He said if I wanted to be a missionary, I needed to get my feet wet and that this was the perfect opportunity. My pastor of the time helped me send out mission letters and soon support came in....well not exactly. It was actually the day before the money was due that I got enough money. The money was due on a Monday and the Saturday before I had earned $20. I needed $740. That Sunday at church, God showed that He had complete power over my finances and that this was exactly what He wanted me to do. How is it that I knew this? He gave me exactly twice the amount of money that I needed to go, and with the money He told me He had a plan for this trip.

Never was I expecting what happened.

You see, when I went to the puppet meetings with Melissa, I just happened to meet this red-headed boy named Robert. And during the meetings we bonded over being a mutual friend of Melissa's....and being one of the three teenagers that were on the trip, and a butterfly made out of frosting (but that's irrelevant to the story). What is relevant however, is that Robert felt like he knew me or had met me before, but we'll get to the explanation of that later.

Little did I know, that red-head was going to become my husband 4 years later. God knew though, and I was soon to find out. Our missions trip was going to be in February, over the week of Valentine's day. And it was during that week that God told me I was going to marry Robert. Don't worry, it wasn't on Valentine's day -God's not that cheesy :), it was the day after. February 15th, 2007.

You see, I was doing my alone time before breakfast that day. Our missions group had this thing about praying together before each meal (which was one of my favorite times of the day) and Robert was sent to come get me. I was in the middle of reading a passage, so when he told me it was time to circle up, I told him I'd be right there and I was going to finish my paragraph in Philippians. As he was walking away that's when God told me I was going to marry him. An exciting time for a 14 year old female.

( I feel like I should take a break and let you know why prayer time was one of my favorite, it's actually kind of cute and has nothing to do with God. You see when we did prayer time, the entire group circled up and held hands...and Robert and I always ended up next to each other. :) See it's cute!)

Anyways. The week went by and obviously I didn't tell Robert that week. The week passed and I kept my focus on God...until Friday. The end of our missions trip as we were heading back to Texas. Melissa and Robert had been hanging out, and it was a very happy time when she came up to me and told me she had a secret. It turns out that this secret was that Robert liked me ( a very good thing, seeing as how I was to marry him) :).

We went to the Golden Corral that evening with the group, and it was after we got back that we took a walk in the garden at the way of the cross ministries in Harlingen, Texas. A very beautiful garden that witnessed the scene of two awkward teenagers telling each other that they liked each other and exchanging numbers.

The day after we got back from the missions trip I called him up, and that was the beginning of our friendship/relationships. We talked to each other often, so often my parents bought a free long distance ( he lived in Rochester, MI and I in Marlette, MI) plan on our phone (much to my delight). It was during one of these phone conversations that Robert realized where he had seen me.

You see, his mom had forced him to clean his room. And in this case, it proved to be a blessing because he had found a journal entry he had made almost two years ago at that point. This journal entry described a dream in which God had told Robert that he was going to marry me. This dream was given to Robert BEFORE we went on the missions trip together. BEFORE he met me. Before we even knew each other God had told Robert of His plans for us to get married and have children, and that missions trip was more than just getting my feet wet. It was the meeting of my husband.

Some people say that we've moved fast in getting married. We got married on our 4 year anniversary (may 28th, 2011), the year after our freshman year of college, while I was at the age of 18 and he six days over 20. I was a little hesitant over getting married so young as well. It's not really something I would promote, but we were following God's direction, and that's what's important. And recently, with everything God has been sharing with us about our future, we've come to realize, that as with everything, God's timing is perfect. If we had done our relationship in our timing, we would be thinking of wedding plans right now, instead of having the focus on God to allow Him to prepare us for the big plans of the future. :)

8/5/2012

Things are getting pretty exciting here in our one room apartment. God has really been telling Robert some of the things that we are going to be doing and getting us prepared and in position for the good works He has planned for us.

One of my favorite times in my relationship with Robert is when we have nights like last night. No, surprisingly, being 19 and 21, I'm not talking about the Song of Songs part of our relationship. I'm talking about the dirty work God has called us to do. The staying up late because God has called it on our hearts to have some one-on-one time with Him.

Last night I was having a really hard time with what God wants me to do. He wants me to completely surrender every part of everyday to Him. Seeing as this is a fundamental aspect of my faith and found in the Bible countless times, I should be ok with this right? Well... I'm ok with it...being in the Bible.  I'm finding it to be a little daunting living out, and had a little mental breakdown last night.

Anyways, God in His loving and faithful ways gave Robert the exact verse that I needed to hear, and it caused Robert to laugh as soon as he read it. The verse was 1 Timothy 2:6, "The farmer should be the first to share in the harvest". I of course being dullheaded didn't quite get it at first and Robert expanded the verse to say that God has big plans for us, yes, but it's not all going to be hard work. Right now, the preparations can be hard and not all the rewarding, but the harvest will come and we will be rewarded and blessed. It's not all going to be hard work, there will be feasts and celebrations to come with the harvest.

That was the encouragement I needed. Along with what Robert did next. He went, after working 12 hours at work that day, after consoling me and my mental breakdown, he went and had His God time. You see, God had told him that he needed to quit his job. This is the job that he's had since he was 16. His first job, and it's been rewarding. God gave it to him right after we first started going out, and I remember how excited he was when he had enough money to get his first cell phone, and how great it was when he realized it was going to be enough money to provide and allow us to get married.

Recently, it hasn't been so great. Nothing wrong with the store or the business. Except that it's hard work. Not that we aren't capable of doing hard work. It's exactly the opposite. Robert is one of the hardest working people that I know...in fact, he's easily doing the work of 2-3 people at his job. And that's the hard part about it. The hardest part is when he comes home from work so exhausted that the only physical contact we have is a weary, exhausted hug and a plea for a back massage.

Needless to say, his working the amount of multiple people at work has left him with nothing left to give at home and God recently told Robert that it wasn't good. So here Robert was, after consoling me and being the vessel of God that I desperately needed, starting his God time at 12:30 pm knowing that he needed to be up  by 6:00am the next day, with the goal of getting 10 resumes in before he went to bed.

I know this post is getting long, but I wanted to let you know the small and big accomplishments along the way. And this is my favorite part of the journey. Knowing that Robert and I are training for our big race together. We are preparing ourselves, and allowing God to mold us, as we are getting ready for the good works God has called us to do.

Peace and love,
Kate Nowak

Blog name

I want to explain my blog name. This blog was originally going to be a compilation of my thoughts and random posts about things that interest me. Now it's going to be somewhat of a personal diary, one that in many days to come I will publish with the world.

So why the name change?

The purpose of this blog changed.

This blog will be a look at what God is doing in Robert and my life right now as we are journeying to the path God wants us to walk in. It will be a mixture of moments of us walking in God's path, and moments recalling our walk in each other's love.

But most of all, it will be a testimony of growth and purpose.

I hope you enjoy reading these posts of our life and how we have gotten to where we are.

~Kate.