Moriah Peters: I Haven’t Even Kissed!

Some people are asking “are you serious?”, well yassssss…okay no she has kissed! But she got her ever first kiss on her wedding day, so she is definitely a hero on chastity, modesty, sexual purity and total obedience to God’s word which says “run from sexual sin, no other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.Don’t you realize that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself. For God bought you with a high price so you must honor God with your body.“- 1 Cor 6:18-20 <NLT>

I recently became a fan of the popular Christian Pop  band, For King and Country and that is how I got to know about Moriah Peters, who is married to Joel Smallbone, one of the lead singers of the band.

She is an American contemporary Christian singer and songwriter, born and raised in California. As I researched further, I learnt that Moriah first turned her life over to God at the young age of 14, she always considered singing and songwriting her passion, but actually wanted to be a Lawyer. However she always prayed to be used by God.

It’s amazing to know that this beautiful lady started taking a stand for God as a teenager. So after auditioning for American Idol and being told by producers that her Christian lifestyle was not “ideal,” Moriah knew that was God closing the door. Shortly after that, at age 19, she released her first single, “I Choose Jesus”, which speaks about taking a stand for your faith, and choosing to believe in God.

I stumbled upon a video, as I always do, where the 24 year old singer was being interviewed and she revealed why she saved her first kiss with husband Joel for the Altar.(please could we dwell and ponder here for a bit. Notice that she is only 24, this is to tell you dear young person that you are not alone if you are saying no to sexual sin. You have a hero in Moriah and thousands of other young persons)

I hereby seek for permission to take my leave, continue your gist with Moriah.

She says: It’s more about grace for me, because no where in the Bible does it say “thou shalt not kiss thy fiance until the day of thy wedding…” but God dealt with me personally about it, when I was really young, and He has given my now husband and I the grace and strength to fulfill it. I really believe in sharing about God’s grace. Truth be told, a lot of girls want to have a healthy romantic wonderful relationship, whether their standard is a fairy tale, their parents or a couple in a movie. Nobody wants to be disrespected, nobody wants to physically give themselves away, but unfortunately, a lot of times we get trapped into that. I think that something that God has called me to do is to encourage girls who have made mistakes, who have messed up, who understand what that guilt feels like, and to say to them “It’s never too late to start over. That’s what Christ died for, that’s the whole point.”

I have to admit, I was a little nervous, when you have your pastor telling you “you need to kiss because its a natural progression.” It’s a little alarming. Before my wedding day, I practiced on my hand, I’m not going to lie about it, because I was really nervous about the wedding day. I was also really nervous about it going into engagement  because when people tell you it’s a natural progression and you start having doubts in your own mind, like, is this decision going to be too drastic?  The thing I kept coming back to anytime my fiance and I talked about it is that, God was telling me “just wait!” And it didn’t make sense to me because I love this guy and we are getting married, let’s just kiss, and I mean its not law. But it’s just something that God personally convicted us about, as a couple.

So when we waited and we had our first kiss, it was beautiful, amazing and zero awkwardness but I realized in that moment that God wants to use our story as an example of what He can do. I mean its an impossible thing to not kiss someone as handsome as Joel and somebody I love that much. It just goes to show you that when you make purity a priority and when you ask God for strength in those moments, he gives it, and he gives it willingly and overwhelmingly.

 

“HAVEN’T EVEN KISSED” 

……..Story behind the song (Source:Crown of Beauty Magazine)

“I was dating the man who is now my husband. We were sitting on the couch watching Young Victoria.
I sat there realizing that we could sit there and not be tempted to kiss or have any physical contact. We could just have fun without getting physical. I had made a promise to save my first kiss for my wedding day (more on that in a little bit), so I made sure that my significant others knew that. Anyway Joel and I were watching a movie. Then this song hit me like a ton of bricks. I excused myself to go record this song that just came to me, before I went back to the couch and finished watching the movie.

When I had my first kiss on my wedding day, you can’t imagine how good it felt. It was like happiness, gladness, joy, and peace rushing through me. Happiness because God ignored my teenage prayers asking for a boyfriend when I was like twelve, and happiness because He answered my prayers for a man who would love Him more than he would love me. I felt gladness because I saved myself for the one I would spend the rest of my days with, and gladness because I didn’t give in to temptation. I experienced joy because the day finally came. I had joy because my Jesus picked the perfect guy for me. I had peace because I knew that God was always taking care of me. He saw the big picture when I didn’t.

I just really want to encourage girls. If you know that you’ve gone farther than you should’ve in a relationship, it is okay. God will forgive you. He died on the cross to wipe your sins white as snow. Because of His blood we are white. If you haven’t kissed yet, take heart. The day when you say ‘I do’ and promise yourself to your husband until the day that you are separated by death, the feeling that you will get shall be one of the most wonderful feelings you’ve ever felt.

Girls, in the end, I just really want to let you know that God has everything in control. Don’t force yourself into a relationship that isn’t ready to be opened up yet. All good things come from patience.”

Levi Lusko: Through the eyes of a Lion

So i stared a bit at the screen not knowing how to start this, but start I must. My hands itch to tell the story of Levi Lusko and how He has together with his family had to learn through suffering. Levi is a 33 year old man,married to Jenny Lusko with four beautiful girls.

He is also the Pastor of Fresh Life Church in Montana. He has written an amazing book known as “Through the eyes of a Lion” which has blessed thousands of lives since its release. It will do us a lot of good to know the inspiration behind the book and thankfully I have transcribed a session at Passion 2016 where he was interviewed by Louie Giglio . From hereon, Levi speaks.

In 2012, we were seeing our dreams getting fulfilled but in December, we had the chance to live out so many night mares. Five days before Christmas,we dropped off the kids at my wife’s parents place, so we were home alone. Jenny was wrapping Christmas presents, i was preparing a sermon. We decided to go pick up the kids and and on the way there i told my wife “I feel relaxed…” but as we pulled up the drive way, Jenny’s brother comes running up and said “Lenya’s not breathing!”

Lenya is our second daughter (5 years at the time), her name means Lion, she had asthma, which i have as well, have had since my third grade. She had not been taking her medicine, she lost consciousness, her heart stopped beating, paramedics came in and all i could ask was “is her heart beating?” We got to the hospital and after everything, the doctor said “I’m sorry, there’s nothing more we can do, would you like to come inside so you can see when we turn the machines off.” I ran into the room with my wife and prayed crying “Jesus you rose from the dead and you can raise Lenya from the dead right now.” She didn’t come back.

We sank to our knees and held her hands and found ourselves saying what Job said “God you gave her to us and you have chosen to take her back, and all we can do is bless your holy name” That moment was the closest to heaven as i’ve ever been. After that i wanted to tear down the machines from the walls. I remember pacing and my wife crying, Lenya died with her eyes open, I closed her eyes and it was shocking when the front desk asked”what funeral home do you want us to call?” And I was thinking, No! I didn’t want them to call any funeral home.
As we got to the car, Jenny said to me, “you have to go back in there and invite those people to church”. I turned to her and I’m like “who are you?”, in her hands she had invitations to our Christmas worship experience and how she had those invitations handy, I’ll never know. She simply said, “Lenya would want you to“.
So I got back to the hospital, saw the security men, guys at the front desk, and everyone and I’m crying and saying “my daughter is behind that sheet, but she’s in heaven with Jesus, home for Christmas, and I’m supposed to preach….. and I don’t know how I’ll do it, but if you come then I’ll preach” I found out that two of the paramedics and the respiratory therapist came and gave their lives to Christ at the worship experience.
I feel like when Paul was told just after getting saved that he was a chosen vessel,there’s another side to the story. So yes, he was destined for impact but He was also told that he will suffer many things for the name of Christ. But they are not two different things, they are two sides of the same coin. That’s our calling. It is through suffering, not in spite of it, that God uses us. Suffering is not an obstacle to your being used by God. It is an opportunity for you to be used like never before. For as Paul suffered, God unleashed his calling. If you take away the suffering, you take away the ministry. In Revelation, it says we are Kings and Priests to our God, but Kings and Priests had to be anointed. You get anointed with oil, you press olives to get oil.
As we beg for God to anoint us, I wonder if we know that the only way to get anointed is through crushing. AW Tozer said “it is doubtful if God can use someone significantly without first wounding them deeply”. We have to get to Gethsemane before getting to calvary. When we ask God to use us, we are asking for both sides of the coin.

God has been good, he is near to the broken hearted . Loss is loss, whether it is death,rape or divorce. We like to rank pain but its useless. Pain is pain and it is real. But know this, in the midst of your pain, God is trying to get close to you and to bless you. He doesn’t cause evil but He’s in control. The devil ultimately causes evil. He asked for God’s permission to afflict job, asked for permission to throw Joseph in the pit and if I’m God’s adviser, I would say “the next time the devil comes around, why not say no“, but thank God I’m not His adviser because whatever God says yes to, He’s uploading a plan to sabotage and cause whatever the devil asked to boomerang and be a blessing for us. He has the devil’s credit card number and he’ll make the devil pay, and we’ll get stronger, the Kingdom of God will expand if we lean into what Jesus wants to do and don’t hastily conclude that God has dropped the ball.

God has been around for a very long time. I’m just 33 years old, what makes me think that I could possibly judge God. Romans 8:28 says “all things work together for the good of them that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose”, we just want it to work out really quickly because we are used to the microwave. But there is no amazon drone that delivers sanctification. We just have to do the hard yards of sanctification with Jesus.

When we got home, the hospital called us back and my first thought when i saw the caller ID was that Lenya had been raised from the dead. But they simply said “Mr Lusko, how do you feel about organ donation?” It was really hard but we prayed about it and gave consent. Her corneas gave sight to two people who were blind in one eye, and now they can see through the eyes of a lion. And that is what this book is basically about.

Here’s what I know, Paul said that God wants to open the eyes of our spiritual understanding and enlighten us by the Holy Spirit. Just as there are two people who can see because of my daughter’s corneas, God wants to open our eyes to see things unseen.

I had the job as a dad to close her eyes she died, but what I didn’t know was that God was going to use her to open mine. For me to see heaven as my homeland. I wrote the book so that others who are going through pain can put the right lenses on their suffering. You can’t see things as they are, you have to see them as God says they are. When I go to her grave and I feel so overwhelmed, so distraught, what I have to do is put on the lens of faith and see it for what it is,a dormitory, that’s what the word cemetery means in Latin. And just as students are temporarily in the dorm, my daughter’s body is temporarily in that grave and she is not even there right now. It’s been 1,109 days since she left and everyday I feel like she’s slipping away from me, I have to even play a video to hear her voice because I’ve lost it in my head.

But when I put on the lense of faith, I hear God saying “I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” also “I go to prepare a place for  you…that where I am there ye maybe also”. I realize that she is not 1,109 days away from me, but that I am moving closer to her direction and everyday I wake up I’m getting closer and closer to her. It all depends on how you look at it. You have to make sure you see it through the right lens.
Death seldom calls ahead. The day we buried our daughter we were supposed to head to Disney land to celebrate Christmas but we were at the cemetery singing “I will rise“. We all will leave this world, we just have to be certain where our treasure is. Death either takes you to or from your treasure. Hide your treasure in a place secure.

Also how you handle suffering and trial has very little to do with what you did in the midst of it but what you did before then. It’s highly important to train for the trial you are not yet  in.

This man is one of my favorite pastors and he and his wife are heroes of faith,who have made up their minds like Job and have said “though He slay us, yet will we trust Him”. Trusting God in the midst of the storm is not easy but reading a story like this puts your suffering into perspective. Its time to see your life through the eyes of a Lion, your heavenly father.

Raquel Jacobs : Scarred, yet beautiful

Yaaaaaaay, I finally get to publish this! It’s been ages since my last post on heroes of Faith. I apologize, but I hope  you forgive me when you read about this beautiful hero of Faith. I present to you Raquel Jacobs, also known as “hero 0000003“, a regular chic that God has used to display His power and do extraordinary things. I am very passionate about telling the Raquel story because it’s is a story every young person in this generation should hear, get courage and inspiration from.

I met Raquel in 2013 at our first AIESEC conference together, she was then president of AIESEC Lagos, and looking at her, I immediately concluded that she was one of them rich pampered kids, considering the fact that she was always put together, trendy and elegantly dressed. But here is the real story:
Raquel was born in Lagos, although originally from Kaduna state in Nigeria. She lost her dad at age 16 and being the only girl and first child of four children, she automatically became an adult and had to look after her three brothers because her mom was sick most of the time. She finally lost her mom at the age of 19.
At age 16,she struggled to round up her secondary school education, but after her dad died, she couldn’t go to a university, and her younger brothers all dropped out of school. In fact her family planned to marry her off to a rich man who would take care of herself and her siblings. To escape that life, she ran away from home and lived with an uncle who tried to rape her. She left his house and found a place to live with commercial sex workers and drug dealers in Obalende, Lagos.

“For sometime I lived under the bridge because I was tired of the life in my face  everyday. I lived and slept in cyber cafes because that gave me access to a computer and I could sleep without interruption. There was no one to help me, but I didn’t lose my faith. I have a solid Christian foundation and this really helped me to stay focused. Even though the pressure to conform was constantly ringing in my head, I knew all the things I see now are only temporary.”

Raquel started her first business at 17,with 200 naira she got from one of the commercial sex workers who was reluctant to give her at first, because she refused to sell her body. She started making “zobo” (a local drink) to sell and from that she upgraded to making chin chin!

“Living out there was not good for me mentally and Spiritually but I trusted God…….I had five near rape experiences on the streets and one landed me in the hospital with a scar on my side. I have scars all over from sleeping in uncomfortable places and doing odd jobs. So many times I wondered if God was still watching but I held on to Him. I remember sitting in a chair and breaking into tears. I was upset at God and upset at my dad for leaving this earth early.”

YOUR MESS BECOMES YOUR MESSAGE

Now a social entrepreneur, Raquel currently runs four initiatives.

1. Club 31 Woman Network: In her first year in the university, Raquel felt the need to mentor and educate young girls about the things that she went through and that is the inspiration behind the Club 31 Woman Network. “So many times we face difficulties that alter the itenary of our lives, only to find the detour was actually God’s path”
2. Beyond The Classroom: On a random day, she saw a boy walking to school with torn uniform and shoes,she followed him from a distance to his school, that drew her attention to the public school system, the bad state, and the fact that the students are uninspired and demotivated to learn. She quickly connected with the students because of her own background and Beyond The Classroom (BTC) started a few months after that. Beyond The Classroom is an NGO focused on improving education for less privileged pupils in primary schools.
3. Afri Aspire Fellowship Program, an initiative built around year long social innovation projects that are implemented by selected passionate youths in Nigeria and supported by founders and private partners.
4. The purple Squirrel Company, a professionally managed company with a group of trained trainers committed to equipping students by teaching them new techniques, strategies and providing avenues for learning and growth to improve them during and after school.

She says “I have been working directly with children and youths in marginalized communities in Lagos focusing on education and empowerment of girls. I am a public speaker, trainer and co- founder of Club 31 Woman. Ii am a Global Shaper, a Carrington fellow and a LEAP Africa SIP fellow. In the last four years, I have volunteered with numerous organizations including the World Economic  Forum on Africa, U turn Africa and AIESEC. We are currently working on a digital literacy project for children in public primary schools,in partnership with Micro Soft, YALI and Afrika Leadership Development Institute.”

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I want to quickly take the time to quote one of my favorite pastors, Levi Lusko”hard times are a passport that gives you permission to go places you wouldn’t get to any other way” and don’t forget that gold must go through fire. I am personally inspired by the Raquel story because it tells me that God will arrange every experience in my life to serve His purpose.If ever you need a mentor, this is one! God uses rescued people to rescue people, look at Raquel, mentoring young girls and letting them know there is more to life, helping children get quality access to education and all the other wonderful things she is doing. What other way could she be plugged in? Raquel is a fierce and fearless hero that had to stand and fight knowing fully well that she is the father’s daughter and none of the things she has gone through can ever separate her from the love of Christ. I love Raquel.

To read about our previous heroes, click here.

FiercenFearless#TheOneMillionChallenge#GenerationOfYoungPeopleLovingGodEverywhere!