Brandon Gilliland

Today, I have the honor of having Adalenne as a guest on the blog. I got connected with her through Twitter, and we have had some awesome conversations recently.

If you want to connect with an awesome individual,  follow her on Twitter and subscribe to her YouTube channel!

Adalenne has created a video blog specifically for you all on having a pure mind and how that translates to a better relationship with Christ. Enjoy!

If you can’t see the video, click here.

What are your thoughts about the video?

Please share links to this video and remember to leave a comment!

When you wake up and your feet hit the floor, a new day begins. It is important to have a purpose. God gives us another day to live for a reason. When I wake up, I make an attempt to realize that I’m alive and breathing for one reason: God has a plan and purpose for me.

To be successful in our lives, we have to realize that we have a purpose.

If you go about your day with no purpose, it can be a waste of time. Instead, God calls us to do the complete opposite.

As Christians, we are called to live intentionally.

It’s hard to live an intentional lifestyle if you’re always focused on the latest reality show or other insignificant things. Life is precious, and we should do everything we can to make an impact on others by showing God’s love.

What Is Your Purpose?

The issue of life in regards to abortion is a heated topic in our society. As Christians, we know that God is the author of life.

I posted the graphic above on my social media accounts. It received a good response, so I thought that I would post it here. Feel free to use the graphic!

Do you feel that the issue of abortion is a hot topic? Opinions?

I attended a powerful leadership conference a few years ago featuring speakers such as Terry Bradshaw, Laura Bush, and General Colin Powell.

Although all of the speakers were amazing,  Rudy Giuliani’s comments were the ones that really stuck with me. Not only was he a great speaker, he was a great leader during a tough time in America. Here are some of the highlights of his speech:

1. Know what you believe in.

Manage your beliefs. If you do not know what to believe in, it is very easy to fail.  It is important to establish your beliefs early on because they will lead you to the final result. Your beliefs will be your driving force.

2. Be an optimist.

Being optimistic is a mind set. Our natural instinct is to think about and focus on the negatives in life. Remaining optimistic is important in leadership. To keep an optimistic mindset, continually visualize your dreams. You have to dream in order to achieve something great! After the visions and the dreams have started to become clear, it’s important to set goals.

Over the past few weeks, I have had the chance to talk with many people about prayer. I found that many find prayer to be complicating. The reality is that we make prayer complicating. It doesn’t have to be!

In modern Christianity, I have seen that prayer has become an “art”. Many do not pray because they feel that they are not a “good enough pray-er”. It really makes me sad that people feel that way. Prayer is not an “art” or a style of speaking that is used to fill a spot in a church service; however, it is a conversation with God.

I believe that we often over-complicate prayer.

It is hard to develop a strong relationship with God if your prayer life is almost non-existent. God desires to talk with us…and more importantly, He desires for us to pray passionate prayers. This does not mean that it has to be a perfectly delivered oratorical speech. Prayer is simply a talk with God.

I’ve been able to connect with many incredible people over the past few months. Recently one of my Twitter friends, Hannah, sent me a video she made. I watched it, and I thought it was incredible.

The world has such a distorted view of what it really means to be a Christ follower. This video presents some challenging thoughts. Be sure to watch the video and connect with Hannah on her Twitter and YouTube channel.

What did you like most about the video?

*If you liked the post, click here to share this post via Twitter!

Hey everyone! Hope you are in preparation for Easter. Yes, today is “Good Friday”. Today (some years ago) was the day when Jesus took on the penalty of our sin. Instead of just taking this as another day, thank God for what He did many years ago. Without Easter, we would still be praying and confessing our sins to a priest. Our sins would not have been paid for.

I’m reminded of a great verse that shows the freedom we have through Christ:

“Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split…”

-Matthew 27:51

Then…JESUS CONQUERED DEATH!

Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

-1 Corinthians 15:55-57

This is a re-post of a blog I wrote a few months ago. I thought that I would share it again.

A song that I’m sure most of us have heard called “White Flag” is a song by Chris Tomlin that focuses on the theme of surrender. It is really a great song, and it is applicable to every Christian’s life.

So often, we do things in our own strength…not God’s.  Living the Christian life, you are either fully surrendered to God with every aspect of your life, or you are not. I can assume that most of us  have been on both sides of the spectrum.

We often temporarily surrender to God, but then the…

• temptation that leads to sin controls us
• busyness of life steals our time with God
• time we once devoted to spend with God now is replaced with something else

The list can go on. The point is that in order for complete surrender to happen, we must do the following:

There is a common question that encompasses many Christian’s lives: “How do I follow God’s will for my life”?  As Christians, we should desire to stay in God’s will for our lives. If we are truly following Christ, we should have the desire to please and serve Him.

If you are always questioning if what you are doing is within God’s will, then how can you serve Him to your best ability? The answer is rather simple, but it is hard to live it out: we need to keep our focus on God. This is easy to say, but it is not easy to live out on a daily basis. There are a few things that I have to remind myself of all the time to be able to be assured that I am living out God’s will for my life.

Pray

First off, prayer is important. If prayer is not an important part of your life, you can be certain that God’s direction will not be clear. If you are not on the same wavelength as God, you are not going to make the decisions that He wants you to make.

It’s been awhile since I lasted posted a blog. For the past week, I have been reading from Ephesians. I came across a few verses in chapter 5 that serve as a reminder to us.

Before you came to know God, you were considered dark. We were dark because of our debt to sin. When we accept Jesus into our lives, we are light because He lives inside of us.

I get questions from people all the time about being a positive influence in this world. Many simply don’t know how to be the influence. I believe part of the solution can be found in Ephesians.

“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.”

-Ephesians 5:11

In order to be a positive influence for this world, you must expose darkness. Many individuals in this world have no absolute morals. It is our mission as Christians to be the positive influence by exposing darkness.