Discipline and self-control

So, I've never really been someone that would have said, when other people think of me, they think of a guy with a lot of self-control. And I've never really seen my self as someone with a lot of self-control either. This summer has been a really good one. I've spent a lot of time learning about God, myself, relationships. For a while, people could have asked me if my faith was changing my life....although most people don't ask you that. I firmly believe that if we have faith in and a relationship with Jesus Christ, that relationship will change our lives. I was very frustrated that my life was staying the same, I was just doing what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it. I DIDN'T need to rely on God for things like, FOOD, WATER, SHELTER, RELATIONSHIPS, FINANCES. I was self-sufficient, and stale. A lot of the reading that I've been doing in the Bible this summer has been in Ezekiel, which is a crazy book, those prophets did not live easy lives. God does things over and over to get the attention of his people, to let them know that just meeting together once in a while, and singing the right songs and saying the right prayers is not a relationship!!! He wants us to follow him throughout the week, in our everyday lives. He wants to change our hearts, and see us serve in compassion for the people around us. It's so easy to write off the world vision ads we see on tv, and the news about the famine in africa because we don't live there. We don't see people dying everyday because they're hungry. How would you feel if everyone around you was in danger of dying every day because they didn't have enough food? But that doesn't happen here in North America, does it...everyone has more than enough food. I'm sick of having more than enough. It makes me want to cry for the people who have nothing. There are so many people that have had their hope stripped from them, along with everything else. Why do we sit here in our comfy houses, talk about it, and do nothing? DO SOMETHING! If your faith in Christ doesn't make your heart break for those who are hurting, you may need to spend some more time alone with Christ, examining what it is in your life that is hindering your relationship with Christ. It's easy to put other things first in our lives, and we here this over and over, but do we really think about it. If ANYTHING is more important to us than Christ, and following his example of ministering to the sick, something is wrong...Our COMFORT cannot be our GOD, our MONEY cannot be our GOD, our PLEASURE cannot be our GOD! These are things that often take up the majority of my thoughts, doing what I want, when I want, so I can be comfortable. Instead maybe let's try LOVING GOD, and LOVING PEOPLE as ourselves. These two things will change your life! Jesus is alive and working all around, we just need to open our eyes to see it, and join him. He's working everywhere, it's not as though we need to go across the sea to find him at work. Let's go on a spiritual diet maybe? cut out all the crap. spiritual junk food. Jesus is real, and he says that if we seek him, we will find him. If we seek him with all our heart!!!