Jay Mitchell

“Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory” – Jesus. (Luke 9) Yup. That’s right. Jesus said that. What Jesus says before this is a true reflection of what Jesus is asking of you and you better count the cost. You need to let Him lead. You need to let Him take the drivers seat. I remember the first time I didn’t share Jesus when I should of because I was scared of what some people would think about me. Afterward I was reminded of this scripture. Jesus would be ashamed of me? But there was an intimate truth and conviction that came after that thought. This was my conviction; Jesus absolutely loves me. He went through suffering, rejection, being falsely accused, whipped, humiliated and hung on the cross, for me . That was how Jesus displayed His love for me. This is how I know God loves me. The intimate part of this truth is hard to express in words, but when I felt ashamed of not sharing Jesus’ love to somebody, ...

  Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets. 2 Corinthians 7 I remember a time before I had believed in Jesus when I felt so much pain that I wanted to die. I wanted the pain to just stop. The thing was, it was my own actions that had brought me to that point. Whether if it was through my own blindness or through lack of wisdom, I had driven my self to a point of hopelessness. I had no one to comfort me. I remember a time since I have believed in Jesus that I felt so much pain that I wanted Jesus to just sweep me up and take me home to Him. I remember being on my hands and knees and the pain within me was so excruciating I didn’t know what else to do but scream and yell. “You don’t know what its like God!! You don’t know what this feels like! You have no idea!” His respons...

-        PERSECUTION; -       -   harass or annoy (someone) persistently -       -   subject (someone) to hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of their race or political or religious beliefs. 
One of the first and most important lessons I learnt about being a Christian was that I could expect persecution, but persecution as a blessing. As I wrote in a previous post, when I first believed in Jesus I was quick to share about my faith with a guy that I worked with, who turned around and told my other work mates who then all made fun of me and laughed and pointed out all the things still wrong with me. Boy, here I am sharing the best news that I have ever heard and I am getting put down and insulted and pretty much told that I am still a sinner! I was really thrown. Why was God allowing this to happen to me? Why isn’t He showing them Jesus the same way he had shown me? I was forgetting, of course, I use...

           
 What does Jesus mean when he says " Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”?  What is the truth? What is it to be free? I searched for the meaning of freedom and the result was the below; 1     1. The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants. 2.      2. The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. Liberation, release, delivery, non- confinement.     To me, I don't think meaning 1 leads to meaning 2, and I don't believe Jesus was talking about the sort of freedom that meaning 1 describes.  When I was 16 years old, I remember that I couldn't wait to be 18. 'Absolute freedom!" I told myself. The freedom to be who I wanted. No more taking orders from my parents, no more having to go to school and doing my homework every night. Eat what I want when I want and live where I wanted to. My...

When Jesus made salvation plain to me when I was 21-22 years old, it was literally life changing. It was pretty intense and so real to me. But, if you asked some people that I knew, what I was like before  I encountered Jesus, they would paint a very anti God picture of me.  I went to a private Christian High School. I was made to sit through chapel every morning, I had to go to scripture classes, we even had a scripture camp in year 8. Talk about boring. My parents were not Christian, I didn't attend church, even on special occasions and I hated people walking around talking about God. I would even take my lunch break to go to Christian information sessions to argue with Christians and tell them that they were bonkers.  People persisted and were patient with me. Thank God. But the good part is when I finally turned to God, people who knew me where in shock, even the Christians who had preached the gospel to me. One high school buddy who was Chri...

I remember before I knew God, Christians used to tell me about what Jesus did for me on the cross, I would think and say to them how crazy it sounded. Why would God allow himself to be beaten, whipped and nailed to a cross? Nailed to a cross? That's crazy talk I would say to them. "If he was God, why wouldn't he just jump of the cross and destroy everyone who was trying to get rid of him?" It really is foolishness to people who don't know God, who don't understand what Jesus did. And even though at the time when people where telling me about Jesus, I argued and believed that they where nuts. I am glad that they told me. More than glad. Remembering one particular moment in my life before I knew God, I was in quite a bad place. My brother said to me "you know Jesus can help you," and I said in reply "Jesus put me here!". I thought he was crazy. God can help me in this? "The Message that points to Christ on the cross seems li...

“ Ask  and it will be given to you;  seek  and you will find;  knock  and the door will be opened to you. Matthew 7:6-8   
What a verse. One of the first things that God taught me is that I should always ask Him for what ever I need and not be timid about it. Early on in my Christian walk God showed me what faith in Him can really do. He did this in-part so that He could show Him self to be trust worthy to me. I know He doesn't need to prove anything to me, but He does know that I am a man who does not always trust so easily.  
On a number of occasions, God has provided what I needed which seemed impossible to get, but on one occasion He showed me how important it really is to Him. I went for my motor bike license and at the end of it, 20 out of 21 people got their license. There was one lady who did not get her license and when I noticed this, God said to me to go and tell her 'don't be disheartened'. Now I have never  used th...

"Every person the Father gives to me eventually comes running to me. And once that person is with me, I hold on and don't let go."- Jesus. (John 6:37-38 MSG) A great thing happens to you when you believe in Jesus. When you take that step towards Him and trust him to pick you up and hold on to you. He promises to NEVER let you go. My God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. When he made a promise to never let me go He knew the mistakes I had made yesterday. He knew the mistakes I would make today. He knew the mistakes I was going to make tomorrow and yet He still said to me on that very day, knowing things I didn't know, that His forgiveness AND grace is sufficient for me. For the purpose of this blogs subject, I said them in this order for a reason, forgiveness first and grace second. Firstly, if you know Jesus, God knowing all of your past, present and future mistakes says to you that He forgives you. Secondly, there are different aspects of grace ...