The J Man's Thoughts

Jason’s Food War

admin — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 01:57:43 +0000

Life.. It has Up’s and it has down’s. Especially as a Christian trying to follow Christ and his leading in my life. My I have posted allot about my life and what I think about. But this one is different. It is a prayer request. I am writing this in the aftermath to a deadly loss to food. Only but minutes ago I was stuffing my face with sin I did not need or want. A couple of years ago I was 373 Lbs and decided I was tired of being fat and ignoring God’s prompting to food being a sin in my life. So I went on a diet and exercise life style change program. I did well and I lost 101 Lbs. During this time God and I fixed so many issues with my life and he taught me so many things. Until about 11 months ago when the devil decided to start attacking me differently than he had before. He started using food more and more. Have you ever been on a diet and doing good only to be offered FREE Prime Rib. Ya well I have.. and unfortunately I sinned bad that night. I find that food is way to abundant and free when it is a sin. This battle is seemingly getting harder and harder for me. How is it that I can go from So many victory’s and walking with God to consistently to falling on my face in sin and crawling back to the Black Hole of sin where I lived for so many years. I feel like a hay bale target for the sins arrows. I really enjoyed walking with God and now I find myself gaining weight back. My sin in food is always in secret like a lot of sin. Not around good godly people who encourage me .. ” Even if they are Offering Free Food”. I have learned a lot about the real War going on with satin and his demons. I think that now that I have tasted victory in food, satin must have assigned a food demon to me to sling free arrows of sin into my body. I seem to have misplaced my armor… Why… Lord Please Never let me become complacent with sin and never lose my armor. So the point to this is to publically ask for help .. Please pray for me … I Will find victory again and walk with my Lord.. And every prayer is a small swing of the hammer against this mountain of sin. If we keep swinging the mountain will disappear. Prayer Works.. And I have faith that I will find victory over food again. Ps all we need is a mustard seed ……. Thanks Your Friend Jason Joslin

2012

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:25:20 +0000

Recently God has been doing a number on me by showing me about me even though it feels like I am So far away. There has been so many trials in my life in the last year and it scares me to think of what 2012 may bring. The one thing that is scaring me the most right now is just how selfish I really am.. I am Pure evil on the inside… At least when I compare myself to the only comparison.. Selfish, Jealous, Spiteful, Lover of self and of earthly things and the list goes on and on.. I thank Jesus for the wonderful Saving Grace of his love.. I would not make it without it.. After falling I half to stand back up and dust myself off and continue on.. Despite bloody knees from falling so much.. The bible has it right …. The more I fix in my life the more I see just how far I am from him. I have recently came to another conclusion.. I am glad that there has only been one person I have dated before now because I am seeing just how much my selfishness effects my life and my actions and words.. I don’t think that I would have been ready for a real relationship because I had issues with a relationship with myself.. I have also found recently that I had to apologize to my 5 year old nephew for not taking him out for his birthday. How could I have forgotten that.. I have been taking them for grained and at their ages of 4 and 5 this is the time I should not be doing that.. Either way we are fixing all these issues with god’s help and I am excited for the 2012 and finding that Narrow way to walk down. I pray that I can become more like my Savior and less like me in 2012. Praise God that he aggressively keeps badgering me to follow him and will never give up on me.. I also thank Everyone who makes it possible for me to dump my thoughts and feeling out on this blog…

Broken Child

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 01:05:51 +0000

Recently in my life I feel as if things were going well and now even though little has changed I feel as if they had changed. To try to put it in a word picture I feel as if Jesus is holding me with his loving open arms and I keep trying to pull away from him to say ” See I can stand and follow you ” only to Crash and burn. After he picks me back up I return to his arms feeling as a Broken Child. The question I ask myself is why did I leave his arms in the first place. No matter how old I get and how wise I get with earthly and spiritual wisdom I will always be a child to him. I know I am much better off just staying in his embrace. I go through life craving time that I can spend with friends and family in my daily and weekly schedule. Not if but when they fail me It really hurts and I wonder why. In the past it was easy for me to fix because all I had to do is eat something really good. But as I have stated in a previous post that is a sin for me now. So I turn to a form of entertainment wither it be TV, Movies, or the computer. Why.. Why do I do this when I already know the truth. God started with food and was making me fix that. Next he moved on to the movies and TV that I watch. Now God I moving on to my friends. The groups that I have attended at my churches have come and gone with me still there when they die or start. Now I am seeing the starting stages of the death of my third or fourth group. Most of the time the members are marrying off or moving. So it is a natural reason the groups die but I am still there. As the groups die I am unable to spend time with its members for obvious life reasons like marriage. I am starting to see what Is happening. God is eliminating everything in my life that keeps me from him. And no matter what he does I am willing to fill it with whatever I can and that seems thus far to not be him. I know the bible says he is a jealous God and I am starting to understand what that really means for me. So as I get older and change for knowing everything to seemingly knowing nothing about life I am really thankful for the family God has given me. And I praise his name for the fact that from what I can see all of my local family despite the age are Children of God with me. I continue to pray for my sisters children that they will want a relationship with the One True God also. So I need to learn and then act out the fact that despite what is going on in life wither it be good or bad I need a Savior just as much now as I ever did. A savior that is willing to spend as much time with me as I am willing to spend with him. A savior that will never leave or forsake me. A savior that has paid the high price for sin. Thank you God for never leaving or forsaking me and for being patient with me as I continue through life.

Whatever your will is.. That’s ok

admin — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 03:31:09 +0000

In late January of 2011 I was working out on a regular basis and was getting my spiritual life closer to where God wants me when I can to a decision about dating and marriage that I didn’t really want to make. I finally decided that whatever Gods will was for me in marriage or dating that was ok for me. I was tired of looking only to fine rejection. ” I kind of expected rejection because I still kind of rejected myself. ” After I finally made that decision to let God be in complete control of my dating I felt a peace about it that reassured me that it was the right decision. The very next week in the beginning of February I received a shock that was half of gods answer to me. After bible study one of my lady friends asked me what I thought of this girl in the group. And like a Man I said that I didn’t know and that she was ok and why she was asking. She proceeded to ask me the same question 2 more time till it finally hit me like a 2X4 across the head. So after a day or so of mustering up all my courage I called this girl and asked her if she wanted to go out some time. All previous attempts at this with other females end with rejection, so to my shock she said yes when I asked. After I prayed that God would let me know if this was truly his will because of my disbelief that what just happened. So the plan was to meet at a local coffee shop on the 8th of February around 5:30 or 6. Well god answered that second prayer also by sending me a large winter blizzard that same night at the same time. ” God answers my prayers a lot with bad weather as you would see in previous posts. “ We started that date with a prayer and the rest of the night flew by till the coffee shop closed and we had to leave. Before I knew it we were dating and I was loving it. I finally had someone to talk to about my life and to hear how her days were going.

We dated till about mid April when we decided that we were not right for each other and that we could still be friends after. I was ok for the first day but the second day the hurt of the loss of my first love” as they say” set in. I came to understand many things in that following week about myself and what I truly wanted in a wife. God had put this beautiful girl in my life for a couple months to teach me. He showed me that even though there is someone else there to talk to that I still needed to lean on him and that he is ultimately the still the only one that will always be there for me. During the time we dated God showed me what being the spiritual leader was going to be like and how hard it could be at times. He also showed me just how selfish and greedy I really was and how that was not going to work in any relationship. My attitudes and my sensitivity was the final thing I learned. I had always thought how wonderful it would be to just listen to my girlfriend or wife, to find out that I had a really hard time doing that when it counted. When I was ready to listen and when she wanted to talk was on two different time tables. I found myself apologizing for a lot for not listening or not being sensitive enough. I have learned in the times since that I have lost some of my fear of talking to women. I have also found more confidence in myself because of this experience. I am not afraid of much but I am still afraid of talking to available Beautiful women, just not as much now as before.

After all is said and done I am glad that I was able to get to know this beautiful girl. And for the things she was able to teach me in the time we were together. I am also thankful that we can still be good friends and still do things together. Most of all I am thankful to my wonderful Savior for giving me this experience and showing me about myself and what I really want in a wife. I look forward to the fact that God had said that he does want me to date and for any learning I have to do in any relational experiences on my was to finding my wife. I also pray that in any of these future relational experiences that I can draw the person I date into a closer walk with my wonderful loving God. Thank you Jesus and all praise be unto you.

John 10:10

admin — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 02:05:08 +0000

Back in the end of September of 2010 God started a work in my life that was to start a massive domino effect in me that was unknown to me at the time. God told me that the time for excuses was over and he wanted me to start by losing a lot of weight. I was scared at this at first because I knew the kind of commitment and effort that was required for this to happen. What I started to understand threw God hounding me from all of my sensory inputs was that God had been telling me this for years. I had not been willing to listen to this for years so God said that we were not going any ware in our relationship until I fixed this. That went on for years until the end of September when I think God got tired of my excuses and my unwillingness to change and let him take over. Because of this he made the over indulgence of food a Sin in my life. This hit me like a ton of bricks because I felt bad every time I ate too much and at the time that was most of the time. After God made food a Sin this really brought me around to actually listening to God and what he wanted. What he wanted was for me to start by losing a lot of weight. So I went to 1500 Calories a day which helped me loose 14 lbs the first week. Then I started riding my electronic magnetic resistance stationary exercise bike. The same week I talked to a coworker who had built a weight bench and asked him if he was willing to build me one. Jim the coworker who built the bench said he would build me one and it was finished a week or two later. I bought free weights and started at the beginning of November using the weights and bench along with the bike three time a week with a two day weekend recovery time. Since that time and at the point I am writing this letter I have lost 84 lbs. This weight change in my life is only possible because God loves me enough to make my life miserable so that I would listen to him. I do not plan on stopping my weight loss ever I plan on making it a life change and with God helping this should be no problem.

During these months I have been exercising I have been praying for many things one is that God would let me get rid of any remaining skeletons in my cosset. He answered that by helping me get rid of many over night. But there was one that I was not going without a fight. God used two people to help whit this sin one was Tom Harmon at Camp Barakel and the second was John Barnett at Calvary Bible church. This sin that God wanted gone was horror movies. I loved horror movies and I did not want to but decided that God was always right and he promised to never let me down. God told me that he not only wanted me to stop watching them but also to get rid of all that I had. When I decided to do this he added one more thing he didn’t want me to sell them he wanted me to throw them away in a way so that no one would ever find them. When I physically let go of the bag of movies into the trash there was so much instant relief. One of the other prayers that I was praying for was wither God wanted me to be married or to be single for the rest of my life. I wanted God to tell me if he wanted me to be married or to take away the feelings of wanting to be married. He answered that by basically having a good female friend of mine hit me with the fact that this other Girl liked me. She hit me like a baseball bat to the head because of the fact that this girl was beautiful and she liked me. That was weird because I am so use to only rejection and eye rolls from beautiful females. We went out for the first time and I was so nervous that I was forced to let God take over. How God decided to help me out was something only God would do to help me. He threw me said ” I just want to tell you that I am really nervous right now!”. That was God saying the one thing that would help me because of the answer to lose the fear I had of this Beautiful frightening lady and start the first of many wonderful conversations. I am dating this lady right now and I am excited about the future that God may have for us. One thing I am sure of is that wither God has her to be only a learning experience for me or to be my future wife either way God has answered my prayer of wither I am to be single or married. I now pray for my future wife on a daily basis that God will be at work in her life and use any relationships that she may have getting to me to only draw her closer to the wonderful and amazing God of the Bible. I also pray that as I date I draw all the dates I have to God.

I am now willing and want to be the man god has been wanting me to be for a long time. I am done with all the piddly excuses that I can come up with and done with giving the devil a foot hold in my life. Finally I am done being my own worst enemy. With God’s help I am now in his will again and on my way down this rocky road of life. I pray that as I travel down this road I can listen better than I have been in the past.

To my Future wife.. Here is a quick prayer taken form a song for you:

Jesus the keeper of this life you are my refuge my savior my guide watch over this girl tonight and guard her every footsteps as she travels this life and in that quit moment draw her closer to your side that she may come to know you Jesus As I have come to know you Jesus As the keeper of this life

To God:

Thank you God for being willing to do whatever it takes to get me straightened out. Thank you God for the abundant grace you show me over and over again. Thank you God for your love of me and the people in my life and the people I love. Thank you God for watching over my dates. Thank you God for watching over whoever my future wife is. Thank you God for watching over all my days. Thank you God for being horribly beaten and dying on the cross for my sins. Thank you God for knowing me and my thoughts better than I do. Thank you God for being the wonderful artist of creation. Thank you God for a godly upbringing and parents and family members that love you. Thank you God for taking care of all the little things in this life from amebas to the rotation of our solar system. Thank you God that all things in this life are little things for your great wisdom and power. Thank you God for salvation. God you are the only one worthy of my praise. God you alone are worthy and to you be all honor and glory forever.

John 10: 10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

Help I’m Surrounded

admin — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 04:21:45 +0000

God has been doing a number on my life recently by making me deal with areas in my life I refused to give over to him. I never understood why someone would not just give over areas in their life to god and instead pay the consequences for the sin. But when it came to my sinful areas it wasn’t a problem because I refused to see that there was a problem with them. Among the many areas God is working on Media and advertising is one of those areas that god is hitting hard. In our world today satin is really attacking our media by slowly attacking it like the tortoise and the hare. Slowly attacking us threw passivity. If it was a fast hare attack our culture may have issues and refuse the change, but slowly changing things will make us not see the changes. Recently in January of 2011 a court decided that the FCC cannot fine for nudity on TV. Talk about a slow attack on the morals of America. If we ignore TV and Movies and look at advertising most ads use good looking men and women more than likely in very few clothes to advertise their product. The recent trend is to advertise in a way so that the add has nothing to do with the product but will shock you enough to remember the company or product that they are advertising. So what happened to being mentally pure[1]. There is more to being mentally pure then just staying away from the obvious. As part of this process for me God was talking to me about Movies. I am a big horror file guy and I owned 20 or 30 horror films. But God said it was time to root them out of my life. Not only was I to not watch any more bad horror films but he wanted me to throw away all the movies I had. He would not give me peace selling them I had to trash them so someone would not find them. But as I go through my days I notice billboards that do not please God and TV and even people and how they dress. Plus I am wired as a male to be stimulated by all of these potential sins. I feel like I am surrounded on all sides and the world does nothing but laugh because the world does nothing but Satan’s will and it is all around me. What is a man or woman seeking God to do in this corroded world? Luckily God said he would not test us more than we can handle and that in every situation that he would give us a way of escape[2]. One thing that I have learned through all of this is no matter how hard life get there is one thing that can help guarantee victory in life’s battles. The best thing to do is to fall on your knees and pray to the one and only real God who can solve all of life’s trials and who loves us more than we can even imagine. Praise God.

[1] Psalm 24: 3-5 Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the LORD, And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

1 Peter 2: 11 Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,

[2] 1 Corinthians 10: 13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

30th Birthday Present form God

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 02:33:58 +0000

So to start this out I need to explain that I am a huge fan of thunderstorms and Bad weather. I have always like it and thought it was wonderful. I always feel good when there is a good storm for some reason. And this leads into the surprise Gift that God gave me. It started on Wednesday the 21′st the night before my 30th birthday. I prayed that god would give me a present and let the temperature be in the 70′s on my birthday. For reference it was to be in the middle to upper 80′s with high humidity. Most of the day on my birthday that was correct until 4:30 when everything got really dark and there was thunder, lightning and the tornado alarms were going off. This made me feel great because I love bad weather. Everyone at my work seemed to be worried about the weather and its implications. There was one man at my job who even said he seen rotation. But none the less I felt great and then it turned 5 o clock witch meant I get to go home from work. As I stepped out of the front door I felt the 70′s that I had prayed for. And instantly something in me said Happy Birthday Jason. Witch I knew to be from God. God had given me a Birthday Present and it was more than I had asked for. This made me Cry thinking about how he really does love me and that it made me feel loved by the one who controls the weather. As I drove home It got wormer the farther I got from work witch reminded me that this gift was just for me. I am thankful for all the little answers to prayer and Little miracles in my life that I have from this to praying for a good parking spot and getting it. God does answer prayer and wants the best for us even the little things like a Birthday present for your 30th birthday. I hop e you find a much comfort in this as I did…. Jason Joslin

Homesick

admin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:09:21 +0000

Did you ever go to a camp during summer or spend time away from home and did you ever get homesick because you were away from loved ones and your real home. Well I’ve been homesick multiple times in my past for different reasons. But I got that feeling of being homesick again the other day but this time I am in my apartment and have not been any ware to warrant these feelings. This time is different because I cried. Not that I never cried from the same feeling when I was younger but as I said this time was different. This time I am homesick for my Real home. My perfect home beyond the blue in heaven. I may have never been there but that doesn’t change the fact that I am still longing to go and see my God and my new home. Plus there are so many saints that have gone before me that I want to talk to and finally see or see again. Yet the feelings are mixed because although heaven is so perfect I am not, I know that I am still forgiven. Recently in my life I keep feeling that although I keep trying to walk with him I keep falling on my face. I feel that I cannot even walk or crawl on my knees without failing miserably. Then I hear the devil say to me ” How many times do you think he will forgive you for the same thing.. You can’t really be sorry for you sins if you keep doing it.” In my worldly knowledge I have issues believing that an all powerful god can keep forgiving me for the same thing over and over. But luckily Gods ways are higher than my ways and Gods grace and love have covered all my sins now and forever no matter how many times I fail and if I am willing to ask he will even forget all about my sin Forever. After this struggle the holy spirit reminds me of Heaven and no matter how bloody I am from falling and failing if I persevere it will we worth it all to just see my saviors face.. As I type this I cry again. Can you imagine and picture finally coming face to face with God and falling to my face before him this time for a good reason to hopefully hear ” Well done good and faithful servant!” Too look up and see a smile. That will make it worth it. No matter how bad stuff can get to see my saviors face will make it worth it. Oh to be there in heaven finally home where I belong. I hope this feeling of being homesick never goes away till I get there.. Oops till we get there..

Music and Prison

admin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:18:50 +0000

As we walk through our daily lives we sometimes find good and sometimes find bad. But behind every good and bad thing we do or see lies a Motive. Motivations can be good sometimes but wicked most of the time. Why are motives wicked most of the time? Because our heart is where our motivations stem from and our heart is wicked according to Jeremiah 17:9 [i]. Those of us that are Christians know this to be true by looking at ourselves or young children. Young children are never taught to do wrong but they all do it thanks to our Sin nature[ii]. So after a person recognizes that they are a sinner and starts walking down the road with god why do we start erecting our own prisons to lock ourselves in. We do this and like good Christians we say that we are being tested or having trials but the truth of the matter is that we put ourselves in there. In some movies and books the author brings to life some wonderful world that after they are a part of starts falling apart. So the characters in these stories realize that they made the world so they can get themselves out buy just changing the story. Well in our Christian prisons that we have erected we cannot just change the story we need the author[iii] to help us change the story. So we pray and ask the all knowing and all powerful god Jesus to help us with our prison. God may say yes and god my say no or wait. But what if god says no I have given you everything you need to get yourself out of where you are. I have prayed that god would help me out of this prison that I have erected and many times God has said yes let us go, yet I sit back down and lock myself back in. I keep thinking about what god has said to me about giving me everything I need. I can find books and books of verses to help with that but what I have found for me was quite unexpected. As I sat in the car a few weeks ago listening to praise music in my car while waiting in traffic there was a story from the bible that came to mind about Paul and Silas and the Philippian jailer in Acts 16[iv]. In this true story Paul and Silas were imprisoned for casting out a demon in a young girl who could tell the future. They were imprisoned falsely for not being roman citizens but were indeed at the end of the story. But the important part is that while in prison and the stocks after being beaten with rods and having their clothes torn, Paul and Silas were Praying and Singing Hymns to God and the other prisoners were listening to them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed. But Paul and Silas stayed in the prison and called to the jailer who was about to kill himself having been charged with their imprisonment to tell him that we are all here. After which the jailer ran to Paul and Silas trembling and asked what must I do to be saved. What I got out of that is not only did Paul and Silas pay but they were Worshiping God and while they were doing so the jail was shaking and the chains were opened. Worship True Worship is a core or quick road to my soul. I find that when I listen to heavy music I am in that kind spirit or mood, And the same for worship music. Music soothes and ministers to my soul. As I am Worshiping the one true God I am shaking the walls of my prison that I have built and my chains are gone and I have been set free. So this is what god meant by I have everything I need. Music and the grace of god was all I needed to break the walls of my prison. Now that I am free and I know this I can stay free. Yes at times I may lock myself back in there but I now know the key to breaking down the walls of my prison before they maybe even finished Music.

[i] Jeremiah 17:9 ”The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], And desperately wicked; Who can know it?

[ii] Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned–

[iii] Hebrews 12:2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

[iv] Acts 16: 1-40

The Deadly Tongue

admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:56:45 +0000

So have you ever been watching a movie or sitting in a restaurant or some other place and all of a sudden someone swears. I think it has happened to all of us. But recently god has been telling me that I need to watch what goes in my eyes and ears and what comes out my mouth. First I think about how the bible says in Proverbs 4:24 “Put away from you a deceitful mouth, And put perverse lips far from you.“ And for the eyes I turn to Mat 6:22-23 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great [is] that darkness!” Because the eyes are the window to the soul.. I need to think on godly things as it says in Philippians 4:4-8 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” God also wants me to Hate evil in Romans 12:9 it says Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. To do this all the time requires you to constantly be thinking about it or as it says in Romans 12: 1-2 renew my mind. The bible also says in Galatians 6 7-8 that “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” So out of the verses I have looked at I can see that I will reap what I sowe and what I see or hear can be burned into my soul. I need to remember what it says in Luke 6:45 “…For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” As I take in movies and listen to music and take in my surroundings there is a lot stuff that can infect my mind and as it infects my mind it can change my heart and the bible says in Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it [spring] the issues of life. So I am to Guard my heart. Sometimes that my means you need to leave a restaurant or show or end a conversation. That may also require you to say something the individual in order to guard your heart. This post has been good for me.. and I hope it helps you like it has helped me..