Jeannie's Daily Bible Verse

2.13.12

2012-02-13T07:21:00.000-08:00

Exodus 36:1 The Lord has gifted Bezalel, Oholiab and the other skilled craftsmen with wisdom and ability to perform any task involved in building the sanctuary. Let them construct and furnish the Tabernacle, just as the Lord has commanded.

My Thoughts

These were just ordinary craftsman... ordinary! Yet when God needed them to do what He asked them to do they were able to build an the extraordinary, a Tabernacle for God. They were able because God gave them the ability. Let me tell you Bezalel did it all...he carved, he wove fine linen and embroidered them. All the wood structure fit perfectly, yes perfectly together! Bezalel inlaid things in gold. He was able to do it all! I imagine this ordinary craftsman when told all that he was going to do laid in bed and thought "I will never be able to do all, ALL these things!" Yet he was able because God ask him to and gifted him with the wisdom and ability to perform the tasked he needed to perform. I bet each night Bezalel and Oholiab went to bed wondering how they were going to do the next days task...and each morning they woke up with that "Oh, I know how to make this work!" feeling.

How many times have we gone to bed and wondered how we were going to do something and woke up with the answer, while never stopping to thank God for giving us the answer? I have done it so many times... too many to count. This is one thing I learned from this scripture. I have learned to thank God when the answer comes... because it doesn't come from inside of me, it comes from God's gifts to me...His gift of wisdom and ability for the task at hand.

The other thing I have learned is this... when God ask me to do something for Him, when I get there...when I step foward and start the task, God will give me the wisdom and ability I need to do what He has ask of me. If he ask me to pray for a complete stranger in the store, He will give me the words. If He ask me to tell somebody about Him, he will give me the wisdom I need. If God ask me to build an ark he will give me the plans and the ability to understand those plans.

God ask Robby to take care of me and Madison and John-Robert... and he has given Robby the ability to go to work, and the will to work hard to support us... even before Robby met me he walked into the the doors of UPS so that he could provide for us, for me and Madison and John-Robert. All because God gifted him with the ability to do so!

I have so much to thank God for! Every good think in my life...every good thing in our life is a gift straight from God himself.

2.12.12

2012-02-12T06:14:00.000-08:00

Psalms 33:13-15 The Lord looks down from heaven and sees the whole human race. From his throne he observes all who live on the heart. He made their hearts so he understands everything they do.

My Thoughts

I love this.... God understands everything we do... He is always watching over us...each and every one of us. God made us and knows just how we work. Just like the man who builds an engine understands how to fix the engine he built, God know how to fix our heart because God made our heart. We just have to take our heart to God when it isn't working the way God intended it to work. Then God tweaks our heart...and He washes it with the blood of Jesus... and then God tells us exactly how to keep our hearts in good working order... He even gives us a manual that helps us keep our heart working right. We are so special to God. He loves us so much that He will fix us over and over again until we understand. He cares that we "get it." We are never too big a problem for God. We just have to take our hearts to him. Just like a little child takes a toy to their daddy, we can take our hearts to God and say "I didn't something wrong, I have broken my heart." When we do that God will reach down and take our heart in His hands and make it all better again. How special is that!

2.11.12

2012-02-11T05:49:00.000-08:00

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

My Thoughts

I love this... God has plans for us... God's plans for our lives are good... God wants us to have good... I find this so comforting. In John 10:10 Jesus tells us "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." God sent Jesus...and Jesus died for us so that our life could be wonderful.... full. The devil likes for us to believe that we don't deserve... that God is always mad at us.. the devil likes for us to be discouraged. God does not give to any of us because we deserve it .... God gives to us because he loves us. God forgives us not for something we do to deserve forgiveness...but because He loves us. God wants our lives to be full... because He loves us. God loves us so much!! God's plans for us are wonderful, wonderful plans.... when we get how much God loves us we have hope, hope is an amazing thing! I love knowing this! I love knowing that God loves me no matter... the thought just makes me want to be a better person!!

2.10.12

2012-02-10T07:03:00.000-08:00

Exodus 31:1-5 Then the Lord said to Moses, "Look, I have specifically chosen Bezalel son of Uri, grandson of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. I have filled him with the spirit of God, giving him great wisdom, ability, and expertise in all kinds of crafts. He is a master craftsman, expert in working with gold, silver, and bronze He is skilled in engraving and mounting gemstones and in carving wood. He is a master at every craft."

My Thoughts

My crafting friends will love this!! I love how God gives us each something to be good at. God gave Bezalel this gift to serve Him. We are all given our gifts to serve God. Joyce Meyer puts 2 John1:6 this way "When we walk in love God is present." (The Secret Power of Speaking God's Word). These verses make me feel as if each time I use my ability to create and share it with somebody, God is in that gift that I am giving away. After all God gave me the ability to understand and do my knitting... when I give it is out of love...and God is love... so when we make things and give them to others out of love then God is present in those gifts... God is present in us when we are creating those gifts and when we are giving them. How special is that!! Now wonder if feels so good to give... when we are giving God is present!! There is no better way to have God in our lives than that! What gift do you have? How can you use that gift to show the love of God today?

2.9.12

2012-02-09T09:06:00.000-08:00

John 16:33 "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

My Thoughts

I love this!... Jesus is saying I am bigger than any troubles...any sorrow that you may come across. In 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 Paul said "We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed." For now we live here in this world full of troubles where we get so confused...and sometimes life seems so hard. When life gets that hard we need to always remember John 16:33... Jesus has overcome the world. We are told in 1 John 4:4 that He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world. Jesus left the Holy Spirit to live inside of us to direct us... Jesus overcame the world for us by dieing for our sins. We have God on our side... and God is so much bigger, so much stronger than anything we have to face and God is by our side always, there for us always. Bigger and stronger than anything this world has to dish out. The world may be able to knock us down... but God picks us back up and finishes our battles for us and when He does, He turns what was meant for our bad into something amazing!

Next time the devil sends out the "big guns" against our lives...we can say "Go ahead Satin, send what you want... because my God is bigger and the prize at the end is going to be wonderful!"

2.8.12

2012-02-08T07:48:00.000-08:00

Matthew 25:14-15 Again, I say the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone. He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last -- dividing it in proportion to their abilities, He then left on his trip.

My Thoughts

God has giving each of us what we can use wisely, what we can handle. God knows what our abilities are. God doesn't hold things back from us because he does not love us. God holds things back from us because we are not ready yet for more. God does not want us to be overwhelmed so He gives us just enough. When we do good with what He has given us... when we learn what we need to learn to grow... God gives us more. If we find ourselves stuck in life... we can go to God and ask "God, how have I failed to use what you have given me?" Then we can listen for the answer and improve.... as we improve, as we grow, as we change into the people God wants us to be ... we become more able to be in-trusted with more of what God has in store for us. God only holds back from us because He loves us so much.... we have a part to do, our part is to learn to use what God has given us so far.... then God will shower us with more of his wonderful blessings!!

1.7.11

2012-02-07T08:13:00.000-08:00

Matthew 24:43-44 Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into. You also must be ready all the time for the Son of Man will come when least expected.

My Thoughts

When I got to this verse I instantly thought of how so many of us these days have security systems in our homes. We walk in set the alarm... we set the alarm as we are leaving.... there are people in place to make calls for us if our alarm goes off and we are not able. We have made our homes ready. We can even check on our houses from far away places if we have the right security system.

We need to make our hearts as ready, secure for Jesus' coming. We need to start our days with prayer and God's word securing our actions for the day... we need to set in place people that will step in and pray for us when we are unable... that will pray for us when we have stepped out of the security of God. We need to keep God close no matter where we go talking to him all the time, no matter where we are. Our hearts and minds need to be as secure and ready for the second coming of Jesus even more than our homes need to be prepared for a burglar.

We set about making sure our homes, our things are safe. We need to be that diligent in setting about making sure our souls are safe. We make time for social media, for television for text messages everyday... Yet we often think we don't have time to secure our steps, our souls for the day. We do have time.... We just have to make God a priority, as much a priority as pushing those number on our keypads in our home security systems.

God's word is, after all the best security system for our hearts!

2.6.12

2012-02-06T07:47:00.000-08:00

Psalms 29:11 The Lord gives his people strength. The Lord blesses them with peace.

My Thoughts

This passage tells me that if I find myself needing strength... of find myself without peace that I have left God back at a cross road. When stress has zapped me of all my energy..and anxiety has entered my life there is something that I have not gone to God about. If I have and still feel these things... I may have laid my problems at Gods feet...but I left them tied to my body and when I walked away I drug them with me.... instead of really leaving them with God. I want to put this verse in my remembrance so that when I feel myself weak or not at peace I will be reminded to go to God with any problem that I have, with any anger that I have... with any unforgiveness that I have.. with any worry that I have. When I feel my strength returning...and peace in my soul... I will know that I have successfully laid all that I have at the feet of God.

2.4.12

2012-02-04T07:04:00.000-08:00

Matthew 23:25-26 What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy-- full of greed and self-indulgence! You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish and the outside will become clean too.

My Thoughts

When we let the world see the best of us and then we go home and we are not as good a person as what the world sees, we are not fooling the world we are fooling ourselves. The Pharisees thought that they could follow the law without any care for the intent of the law and they would shine like new dishes! Jesus told them different... Jesus said your heart and soul have to be right then the rest will follow.

Our actions reflect our hearts even when we are trying to cover up how we really feel. But, if we make our hearts right...if we love with our hearts our actions will follow. When we find ourselves saying and doing one thing in public and coming home and being and feeling totally different about it in private that is a red flag ...a red flag that our heart is not where it needs to be. That is a time to go to God and say "God I see my heart is not where it needs to be, I felt like I needed to cover up how I felt... If I needed to cover up how I felt then something is wrong in my heart....I see now that I need changes in my heart. Will you please help me with that." When we go to God and truly want to do better, when we want to be a better person." God sees that and He sends down His grace to help up grow, to help us be better!

When we spend time in God's word, in prayer, in worship. Especially when we spend time alone with God, We get the inside of our cup clean... then the outside sparkles too. God loves to fill our cup overflowing...when our cup overflows it spills out onto others. What we want our cup overflowing with is God's love. To make that happen we have to do all we can to learn all about how much God loves and cares for us. As we learn, as we spend time with God love begins to fill our hearts....and when God sends down his blessings, He always sends down enough for us to share!.

2.3.12

2012-02-03T05:51:00.000-08:00

Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

My Thoughts

Love! We are to love God first...then we are to love others and we are also called to love ourselves. So many people have not been taught how to love... so many people have messed up so much that they think that nobody loves them and they don't even love themselves. They can't even imagine that God could love them. Our job as Christians is to go about loving God first then loving everybody that we come in contact with. Our neighbor is the person next to us no matter where we are. 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 tell us what love is...4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

So often we plan our days so packed full of stuff... we make ourselves think we have somewhere to be (home to watch a ballgame). We get in such hurry that we don't have time for love! How sad is that! Sometimes a person's first glimpse at love comes from a complete stranger standing in line with them at Wal-Mart. Even at Wal-Mart we are called to be patient and kind, we are called to love by not demanding our own way...even if we have to wait ten minutes to get sugar from the shelf... we need to wait in love. We need to never give up on finding opportunities to show people love. We need to never lose faith in the fact that when we do what God ask of us that He will take care of the rest of our day if we have taken time to love.

God loved us so much that he watched His Son die on the cross for our sins.... the least we could do is practice love with each and every person that we come in contact with. To love others as we love ourselves we can ask ourselves "If I were in that situation what would I want somebody to do for me?" then act accordingly.

Love it not hard, or complicated... but it does take action and effort... love takes time. We are constantly taking time for the "important" things in life and missing out on opportunities to love. Jesus tells us here that there is nothing more important than love. Today when we are out and about we need to take time to love the person standing next to us...after all that is our neighbor.

2.2.12

2012-02-02T09:10:00.000-08:00

Matthew 22:29 Jesus replied, "Your mistake is that you don't know the Scriptures, and you don't know the power of God.

My Thoughts

I asked Jesus into my heart long before I learned to read and study God's word. I was missing out on so much! So much that God had planned for me. The more I seek after God's word, the more I know it, the more it drops from my head to my heart, the stronger I become. The more I know God's word and how to use it in my prayers, the more I see my prayers answered. The more I know God's word the more I know God's power. The more I know God's power the more God uses that power to change my life. I wish that I had know my mistake long ago...I missed out on so much. But I am so blessed that I am learning and learning and learning. God is changing me through his word! To truly see changes in our lives we must do our part... we must pick up our Bible and read it, and read it and read it... until it becomes who we are!

12.1.12

2012-02-01T07:58:00.000-08:00

Matthew 21:43-44 I tell you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation that will produce the proper fruit.

My Thoughts

Jesus was at the temple talking to the leading priest and the elders who were trying to trip Him up. What I get from this verse and how it applies to us today is this...It doesn't matter how much we know, it doesn't matter if we can quote the Bible word for word. It does not matter if we grace the doors of the church each time it is open if we don't show love...if we don't produce the fruits of the Spirit which are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22) these are the things that come with a truly changed life. God knows when we do it to brag about it and when we do it because we love Him... people will know too by our love.

One example of this in today's world is a person that goes to church on Sunday morning.... then out to eat... then they treat the sweet kind waitress with contempt because she was working on Sunday and not going to church. They have been to Church but don't show love, they don't show the fruits of Spirit. The waitress on the other hand has been nothing but loving and kind, gentle and self controlled, but has not been to Church. If Jesus came back and could only take one person back with Him to heaven who do you think he would take?

We need to always act in a way that shows the fruits of the spirit.. we need to walk in love! God is love and if God is in our lives love with be in our lives. When we find ourselves not acting in ways that show love that is a warning sign that we are stepping away from God, even if we are in Church on Sunday mornings. It is not our Sunday morning clothes that prove we are a child of God, it is our actions! As the song says "They will know that we are Christians by our love, by our love. They will know that we are Christians by our love."

1.10.12

2012-01-30T03:45:00.000-08:00

Matthew 20:28 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.

My Thoughts

Wow!... I have read this many times... but this is the first time it struck me this way. Jesus could have came down to earth and ask just to be worshiped. He could have said that He was the Son of God and told us all He deserved to be worshiped. Another words he could have came to earth and said "I deserve!" He didn't he came to earth to die for our sins and while he was here he went about saying what else do you need?

In today's world we all think we deserve! Even commercials tell us we deserve to have more than we have money for.... We deserve a priceless day. We could change the world if each person, each day would ask just one person, and mean it "What can I do for you?" ... What if we each ask just two people a day "What can I do for you?" ... What if we all started asking that instead of "What can I get for me?" "What will this company do for me?"

Imagine how businesses would change if all the people in a business asked, truly ask each morning "What can I do for this company that supplies me a job?" .. What if each boss asked "What can I do for these employees that make my joy possible?" The company would grow by leaps and bounds...and prosper and everybody would benefit.

Jesus was self-less! What if each of us could be self-less a least for a little while each day? If we all would do that our earth would never be the same again....the benefits that we would reap would be truly "priceless!"

1.29.11

2012-01-29T05:35:00.000-08:00

Psalms 24:1 The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him.

My Thoughts

I loved this today when I read it! It just gave me a sense of peace and belonging! So often we go about wanting to belong.... all of us. It starts in school... but it happens every where we go. We want to belong to be a part of. Not to be left out. If we can get it to drop down into our heat, our souls that we do belong, we belong to God. If we can really internalize this so much of our fear of loneliness would leave us. So often when we choose to do the wrong things we choose to out of our fear of rejection. Our fear of not belonging. When we know, really know that we belong to God, always! .... no matter what, we then get better at making choices based on what will make God happy. We are less likely to become slaves of the need to belong.

Psalms 37:4 tells us that God cares about the desires of our hearts! God knows that we "need to belong." If we spend our energy belonging to God.... God will make sure that our needs are met...even our need to feel like we belong.

1.28.12

2012-01-28T06:06:00.000-08:00

Psalms 23
1 The LORD is my shepherd;
I have all that I need.
2 He lets me rest in green meadows;
he leads me beside peaceful streams.

3 He renews my strength.
He guides me along right paths,
bringing honor to his name.

4 Even when I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will not be afraid,
for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff
protect and comfort me.

5 You prepare a feast for me
in the presence of my enemies.
You honor me by anointing my head with oil.
My cup overflows with blessings.

6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I will live in the house of the LORD
forever.

My Thoughts

David so knew this! It was in his heart...deep down in his soul. David was so sure of God's love. So many of us have "known" this scripture since we were children. Most all of us have at least heard it. A large part of us at some point paid enough attention to these verses to understand them. But David felt them deep in his soul they were a part of him. We need to learn them enough that the drop from our mind right into our spirit.

I heard once that a psychiatrist decided to have his patients, that suffered from depression, read these verses, four times a day. Not memorize them...but have them handy and read them... paying attention to what the words actually said. They were to do this every day for a month (I think it was a month).... They were to read them first thing in the morning, at lunch time...then around dinner time and before going to bed. When his patients came back almost all of them showed great improvement..and something like 80% of them were no longer depressed.

There is something about knowing, deep in our souls, all that God wants for us. God wants to give us all we need. God wants to make sure we have peace. God wants us to choose the right path, he even wants to show us what the right path is. God wants to prove to the world he loves us. God wants us to know that even when times are really, really hard that he is right there with us. And even though we feel afraid that we don't have to be afraid because he is taking care of us. If we seek him we can actually feel his presence. God wants us to know and understand that when we choose to do the right things no matter what our enemies do to us..that we will prosper and they will see that we prosper. God give us all that we need and even more... he will pour out blessings that are more that we can hold. God is always chasing after us to love us and he always will! God wants to take us to live in his beautiful home forever.

When this drops down into our souls...when it is a so much a part of our heart that we feel it... that is when we will begin to see changes that we could never imagine for ourselves! No wonder those people got better!!

1.27.12

2012-01-27T06:12:00.000-08:00

Matthew 18:2-4 Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. Then he said, "I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

My Thoughts

Every time I read this verse I think of how much little kids love their daddy's. When my kids were little...I remember Robby driving up in the driveway....I would wait a minute, giving him time to get almost to the door and say "Daddy's home!" They would go running so excited to see their daddy! They could not wait to spend time with him. They had to tell him everything they could think of that happened in their day! Good and bad. They knew that no matter what they did...no matter how much they messed up that their daddy loved them. If they had a broken toy they would get it and take it to their daddy to fix. I remember them breaking something and saying, "Daddy can fix it!"

We need to be just as excited to spend time with God. We need to understand that we can tell him anything. Our triumphs and our failures. When we have a problem we need to take it directly to God. God is the one with the power to make it better. Yet we often go to our friends, our family talking, talking, talking about our problems before we go to God. My children took their broken things straight to their daddy. That is what we should do, take our problems straight to our Father in Heaven.

My kids laughed with their daddy, we should laugh with God! They felt joy when their daddy got home from work. We have God with us all the time, we should bask in the joy of His presence.

Robby went to work every day (still does) and worked hard because he loved Madison and John-Robert and me so much... and it was his job to take care of us. God loves us even more than that. God is always ready to take care of us. That is something to get excited about!

1.26.12

2012-01-26T07:27:00.000-08:00

Matthew 17:27 However, we don't want to offend them, so go down to the lake and throw in a line. Open the mouth of the first fish you catch, and you will find a large silver coin. Take it and pay the tax for both of us.

My Thoughts

Jesus and his deciples were in Capernaum and the tax collector came to collect taxes for Jesus and the deciples. Jesus and his deciples had been doing God's word and didn't have the money to pay the taxes. But look what happened... God took care of their needs. They needed money and there it was in a most unusual place, the mouth of the fish.

God will take care of us just the same. If we first seek after God, do the things God ask us to do... God will take care of the rest. Sometimes what we need will come from a must unusual place. A place we may not be expecting it to come from... but it will come. God ask us to love... to love Him and then to love others as much as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). When we do this God takes care of us.

1.25.12

2012-01-25T07:48:00.000-08:00

1 John 4:12-13 2 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit

My Thoughts

"When I walk in love, God is present." that is how Joyce Meyer put this verse in her book The Secret Power of Speaking God's Word. I love this... When we choose love we draw God close to us. How many times a day do we have the chance to choose love? So many times we have that opportunity. So often we can choose to be angry or we can choose to forgive. We can choose to be rude or we can choose to be patient. We can choose to be indifferent or we can choose to be kind. We can choose to ignore someone or we can choose to smile at them. We can choose to ignore or we can choose to speak to someone. We make choices all day long, every day. When we choose the loving choice we draw God near... When we listen to the Holy Spirit inside of us and choose to love, we have chosen to listen to God, to surrender to God and do what God would have us do.

When ask by the disciples Jesus what the greatest commandment was, Jesus told them to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. And to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 24: 36-39). We are called to love... All day long we have choices... we make choices... we should always ask ourselves when deciding what to do "Which choice is loving?"

1.24.12

2012-01-24T07:35:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 4:23 Guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life.

My Thoughts

I was thinking, "How do I guard my heart?" I believe I guard it by what I allow to go into it. I guard it by building a wall around it with God's words. The more I know God's word...the more protected my heart is. The more I know God's word the better I am at knowing what is truth. The better I can recognize the lies of the devil.

I picture it like this... Each word of God that I put in my heart is like a stitch knitted into a blanket. When I get started I knit 10 stitches... and a bad day rips out 7.... I still have three... so the next day I knit 10 stitches to go with the 3 left over from the day before... now I have 13...then if I have another stressful day and 7 stitches are ripped out I have 6 left over... eventually the blanket is big enough to withstand loosing more than 10 stitches in a day ... there are the good days too...and if I knit daily... then there are no stitches removed. When I stay in God's word my blanket keeps growing... it grows big enough to wrap around me and keep me all safe for the outside elements. But I have to keep knitting...always working on my blanket...so when the devil comes and rips out a few stitches I keep replacing them. If I get out of God's word...and wander away... I don't add stitches to my blanket..... eventually all the stitches can be ripped out. I have to take care to mend my blanket.... and keep growing it...so I will always be protected. I have to make sure I guard my heart...filling it each day with the words of God. When my heart is full of the knowledge of God's love and the knowledge of God's promises, it stays guarded... it keeps me on the right path.

God gives us his words... it is up to us to seek them out... when we seek out God's word, earnestly, God makes sure that we get understanding. When we understand...that understanding falls down into our hearts and becomes a part of who we are. God used his words to speak the world into existence, to put the stars in the sky... to create the plants and animals. Look what an amazing place the earth is. Imagine what an amazing heart we can have when we fill our hearts with God powerful words.

1.23.12

2012-01-23T08:36:00.000-08:00

Psalms 191:8a The commandments of the Lord are right, bringing Joy to the heart.

My Thoughts

Joy is defined as a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. People are always going about looking for happiness... buying stuff.... doing stuff... always searching. Yet most homes in America have at least one Bible... probably more.... and we have the Internet at our fingertips. Bibles of every edition can be found there. Yet we go about looking for happiness, when Joy can be found in God's word.

Now that I have learned that, the loss of Joy, for seemingly no reason, causes me to step back and ask myself where am I messing up? Where in my day have I not done what God would have wanted me to do. I also ask myself "Am I believing the lies the devil is telling me?" I take inventory and get my actions and my thoughts, my heart back on tract with God's word and then I feel that joy returning. I have my days...but the good think about where God has gotten me.... is when I go searching to feel happy, I now know where to search. That has made all the difference.

1.22.12

2012-01-22T07:24:00.000-08:00

Psalms 18:37 I chased my enemies and caught them: I did not stop until they were conquered.

My Thoughts

I read this verse and immediately thought, "Our only true enemy is the devil, himself." God's word will defeat the devil every time. David was always ready for battle... he had his troops ready, but more importantly David was prepared for the enemy because he had God on his side.

We can always be prepared for the enemy just as David was. We can be ready to face anything by keeping God close to us. By learning God's word an using it as a sword to fight and win. By being aware, totally aware of the Holy Spirit inside of us directing us. By talking to God, by seeking God constantly in every decision we make.

David was always prepared, because David kept God's word in his heat...and David spent time with God... seeking after God in all that he did.

This verse says that David chased his enemies... David made the first steps... we can chase the devil instead of being chased by the devil..by being prepared always..by getting out ahead...by praying for each and every situation before it happens. David's power was God... we have that same power we just have to make the choice to have God on our side.

1.21.12

2012-01-21T07:08:00.000-08:00

Psalms 18:24 The Lord rewarded me for doing right; he has seen my innocence.

My Thoughts

I love this! God sees us... he knows when we do what we are suppose to do... he rewards us when we do what he ask. Even if the world doesn't notice us God always does. We so often miss the rewards of God because we are not looking for them... we think "oh I was lucky." Sometimes we think what we did, is why we got what we got. But the fact was actually that God gifted us because we chose to do the right think. We are really growing when we stop and take notice enough to stop and thank God, when we acknowledge that the things we are blessed with are gifts God has showered down on us. Learning that... letting that fact drop down from our brain into our soul is a blessing too... because then we have the opportunity to feel just how much God does love us.

I have a story that is a good example of God's blessing. Years ago we started paying off everything...and saving, saving for our purchases. We worked really hard at this! We clipped coupons... gave up going out to eat. But we knew doing this was the right thing for us to do. We had $6000 put back for our next car...we were paying ourselves a car payment.... then Robby needed a truck... his truck just finally gave out... it wouldn't go any more...we were disappointed because we had not had the chance to save more. Then much to our amazement Robby found a truck for $6000 ... a one owner... good millage.. very well kept up. It was only $6000. It was exactly what Robby was looking for and it looked almost new! We were so proud of ourselves...but the fact is God gifted us for doing the right thing. We could have decided we could afford payments on $6000 and never found that perfect truck...but because God wanted to reward us He put the perfect truck in Robbys path.... At the time we didn't understand this concept as much as we do now... but, God reward us anyway...so that we did understand we would have something in our very own lives to keep in our hearts as an example of God keeping His promises to us. We were so blessed that day...not because we did something outstanding...we were blessed that day because God loves us all, and God had taken notice of our effort.

God sees what we do... all the time... even when people don't notice we can rest assure that God doesn't miss a thing!

1.20.12

2012-01-20T08:34:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 4:4-6 4 My father taught me, “Take my words to heart. Follow my commands, and you will live. Get wisdom; develop good judgment. Don’t forget my words or turn away from them. Don’t turn your back on wisdom, for she will protect you. Love her, and she will guard you."

My Thoughts

"Love her" I was thinking about this choice of words. I was thinking about how when we fall in love we want to spend every waking moment with that person. Getting to know them... learning everything about them... The more we learned about this person we loved the more we loved them. The more we knew how to make them happy...and we liked making them happy.

We need to love God's wisdon that much... Here we are told to love what he teaches us that deeply. We are told to hold on to God's wisdom... put it in our hearts so much so that it is actually a part of who we are. When we do what God tells us to do our lives are protected..we are guarded. God wants us to always be protected and guarded...but we have to do our part.

One example I can think of right off hand is God warns us aginst borrowing ... God's words says that the borrower is the slave to the lender. If we put this in our hearts..and live by it we are protected ... we can pay our bills...because we don't have too many loans that get in the way of our bills. We are free-er to make career choices because we are not so bound to our lenders....God protects us when we do what he ask us to do...so if we make the wise choice...the choice learned from wisdom we put ourselves under the protection of God's promises. We have to do our part.

When we love somebody we spend time with them, we get to know them..we make choices based on knowing them... When we love wisdom we spend time in it... learning it...making choices based on growing wiser.... God made sure here, that we know that it is our job to learn what He has to teach us..and when we do, we will be protected.

Like in the example of money...if we don't do our part from the knowledge God gave us... we won't be protected...but if we do what wisdom tells us..we will be guarded. We can't ignore everything God has told us and then run to Him for protection from the consequences of our actions. We suffer those consequences for a reason... so that we will learn and grow and hopefully do better. But if we are wise.. we learn from God's word and we don't have to suffer from our actions... if we learn wisdom we make the right choices.

I can hear God talking to Himself about us.. cheering us on even... saying come on people...I have it all written down for you!... Just read and learn, please choose wisdom... please choose to be protected... I can't stand seeing you hurt!!

We can spend time suffering the consequences of our actions..which in some cases takes years to get through.. or we can spend quality time each day in God's word learning and growing and doing. As hard as making time to learn and grow seems to be... suffering is much harder.

God's wisdom is free for the taking... we just have to do the taking...which takes a bit of our time... it is always time well spent!

1.19.12

2012-01-19T08:57:00.000-08:00

1 Peter 5:8 Be well balanced (temperate, sober of mind), be vigilant and cautious at all times; for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring [[a]in fierce hunger], seeking someone to seize upon and devour. (Amplified Bible)

My Thoughts

Joyce Meyer words it like this, in "The Secret Power of Speaking God's Word," "I will live a balanced life because God's word states that if we are not well balanced we open the door for Satin to come in and devour us."

God has really been dealing with me about balance...then I came across this scripture in Joyce's book... and it really spoke to my heart. I have spent a couple of weeks thinking about it, on and off. Then today this came up in my reading again... and finally I could see it so clearly! When there are things we need to do and don't do them...the devil loves to use that to tell us how unworthy we are, how lazy we are... how incapable we are...and soon we believe him...and instead of tackling what we have been putting off we begin to think "I can't"... as soon as that I can't comes in to play the devil has his hold. As soon as we start believing the "I can't-'s" and the "I am useless-'s" the less productive we become... what the devil has first taken from us is our energy... negative thoughts zap of us our energy faster than a hard days work ever could. When we plan our days with balance...we can nurture our soul, get things done, be creative and spend time with loved ones and friends... all while feeling good about ourselves. When we feel good about ourselves, when we believe what God tells us we are, and not what the devil says about us..the cracks in our armor begin to heal and the devil doesn't have a something to use against us. We then have room for the joy of the Lord...and joy..well that produces energy.

Balance was eluding me... even though I knew I needed balance I just didn't know how to go about getting any.... I am an all in person...or an all out person... so this balance thing is not something I really have ever mastered. Over the last few weeks... after repeating "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13)"...and then learning that "You have not, because you ask not (James 4:2).... I begin to understand that God wants me to have balance... so if I ask God for balance, something He wants for me, then God will give me answers, and strength to have that balance.

So just this morning several things came to mind just how to plan my day with more balance... not somebody else's plan... a plan for me. That is a God thing! I am today putting that plan in order... it is basically very simple... it is 30 minutes of each activity... a little work, a little play, some folding of the hands... then a little work a little play, a little folding of the hands. God is so good to give us answers! God made us, he knows us...he knows what we need... God knows what will work for each of us, based on our personality and our abilities. God has the answers...we just have to ask the questions. The thing is God wants us to have balance, God will always give us what He wants us to have, we just have to let God know that it is a desire of our heart.

1.18.12

2012-01-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

Matthew 12:33-37 "A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad. You brood of snakes! how could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for the idle word you speak. The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you."

My Thoughts

Whew! This verse probably touches us all ... our mouths are always going.. needing to say something. And bad news, true or not, spreads like wildfire. This verse says to me that if we find ourselves speaking bad about someone that we need to stop and examine our hearts, the devil had found a crack...we need to seal that crack up. Idle words...I bet 80% or our words are idle... at least 50%. Just talking to be heard. Yet we spend so little time talking to God. Maybe God gave us so many words to speak, because we needed them to talk to Him with... but, instead we use them just to idly talk, talk, talk. This is a reminder to me to use my words to keep a check on my heart.... and to spend more of my many words talking to God.

1.17.12

2012-01-17T07:18:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 3:21-26 My child, don’t lose sight of common sense and discernment. Hang on to them, for they will refresh your soul. They are like jewels on a necklace. They keep you safe on your way, and your feet will not stumble. You can go to bed without fear; you will lie down and sleep soundly. You need not be afraid of sudden disaster or the destruction that comes upon the wicked, for the LORD is your security. He will keep your foot from being caught in a trap.

My Thoughts

I needed this... I looked up discernment...I vaguely knew what it meant...I wanted to be sure...to have the right words in my head... it is defined as "the ability to judge well." The more we read and study God's word... the more we talk to God and listen to the Holy Spirit inside of us the wiser we grow... in all areas including common sense and discernment. We are told here to trust our common sense... trust our ability to judge well. When something makes sense...and it feels right in our spirit, our gut... then we can trust that! If it feels wrong...we can trust that. We all know the difference in talking ourselves into something being right or wrong...we know we are having that conversation with ourselves. We know when it is just common sense.. we know when we have used discernment. God gives us common sense and God gives us discernment...we are to use them wisely. The will refresh our soul.... they will protect us from traps the devil tries to put in our path. They will protect us from people that the devil uses to pull us in to something that is not good for us. Common sense tells us when something is too good to be true... discernment tells us to sit back and examine the big picture... look at all the parts and see if what we are looking at will work. I think God is telling us here...Look I have given you the tools to protect yourselves, trust them, use them! Don't second guess them, they are gifts I give you for your protection, use them wisely.

1.16.12

2012-01-16T07:40:00.000-08:00

Genesis 33:10 But Jacob insisted, "No, I have found favor with you (Esau), please accept this gift from me. And what a relief to see your friendly smile. It is like seeing the face of God."

My Thoughts

In Chapter 32 Jacob has wrestled with God... Jacob had won...and God had given him the name Israel. I think when God gave Jacob his new name God must have smiled. That smile was on Jacob's mind the next day when Jacob met up with Esau. Jacob had seen the face of God... and that warm, welcoming smile...that friendly smile reminded Jacob of God's face.

I don't think I will ever again see a friendly smile the same. From this verse I will know that a friendly smile has a hint of God's face in it! I have finally internalized that all that we have is from God.. even a smile across a crowded room is from God.... now when I see a friendly smile I will know that not only is if from God, it looks like the face of God. Now I know that every friendly smile is so totally of God. How special is that. With this knowledge how can we not feel special each time someone smiles at us! Because every time someone smiles at is we are being loved by God himself... we are getting a fleeting glimpse of God and all the love He has in His heart for us at that very moment!

With this knowledge in our hearts we should never deny anybody that same moment! When we think to smile at someone we should always act on that urge to smile! So that they too can feel God's love...even if they don't know that is what they are feeling!

Today this made me feel so totally warm and happy inside... how does it make you feel?

1.14.12

2012-01-14T07:43:00.000-08:00

Matthew 10:16 Look, I am sending you out among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and as harmless as doves.

My Thoughts

This says to me that as Christians we are to be harmless... and kind... but we don't have to be pushovers. We are allowed to be aware when we are being taken advantage of and we don't have to stand for that. We are to stand up and take notice, pay attention. We are actually suppose to be wise enough to protect ourselves.

Verse 14 says that if any household or town refuses to welcome you or listen to your message, shake the dust from your feet and leave. Our part is to be kind... to spread God's word... to tell others about how much God loves them... our part isn't to make them accept...it is to make sure they know..what others do with the information we give them is their responsibility.

As Christians we are to spread God's word and be kind and loving, gentle. But we don't have to take on the responsibility of others. We leave that part for them. We plant the seed and then let them choose to accept the seed. If someone comes to us and ask us to help that seed grow then that is exactly what we do. We are to be kind and loving and gentle to others...but we don't have to sit back and be taken advantage of because of our kindness... we can protect ourselves from harm.

1.13.12

2012-01-13T09:54:00.000-08:00

Psalms 11:2 The wicked are stinging their bows and fitting their arrows on the bowstrings. They shoot from the shadows and at those whose hearts are right.

My Thoughts

When I read this verse... my thought was immediate, "The devil is always preparing for battle, for attack on us. He is always waiting, we need to always be ready." The devil IS constantly preparing and attacking. God's word tells us to meditate on His word day and night.... we are to hide God's word in our hearts so that we will not sin against God (Psalms 119). When we learn God word, when we make sure it is in our hearts so that we can call on it whenever we need it, when we stay in constant contact with God through prayer....we can win against the devil every time. The devil is always hiding, looking for, preparing for the moment we have a crack in our armor. The more time we spend in God's word...the more time we think on what we have learned, the more time we spend talking to God, the stronger out armor is. The less cracks we have for the devil to get through. The devil is in constant preparation...and the only way to beat him is to be in constant preparation ourselves...then when the attacks come we have God's word to call upon...we have the grace of God to make us strong... we are not separated from the protection of God...and we are use to listening to the Holy Spirit inside of us so we recognize His voice. We have God on our side...we just have to make sure that we have taken the time to get prepared for the battle... instead of being lost in the wilderness. God gives us the tools for victory... it is our job to put those tools to good use!

1.12.12

2012-01-12T07:32:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 3:9-10 Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce. Then he will fill your barns with grain and your vats will overflow with good wine.

Romans 13:8a Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another.

My Thoughts

This year along with reading my One Year Bible through I am reading sections of The Secret Power of Speaking God's Word (Joyce Meyer) over my life, my family and the lives of my friends. There are some sections that I have marked that I am reading over my family weekly. I am loving this book!! It divides scripture under sections. Today I remembered a verse under the Prosperity, Finances and Giving section when I read this verse from Proverbs. Put together in my mind they got me thinking.

God's word tells us to honor God with our wealth, the best part of everything we produce. We are told in Deuteronomy 26:2 to give the first part of what we harvest to God. Here in Romans we are told to owe nothing to anyone...except love. When we get so lost in our wants, our desires of having we often put our selves in the position to not be able to give back to God the first part of what God has given to us. When we get ourselves so in debt, when we owe we become slaves to our debtors and often end up working so much that not only are we not able to give to God we are not around to give love to our families .. to love our friends... it is a vicious cycle! One that the devil loves to get us in.

God will give back to us more when we put Him first... if we want to make sure that we have what we need.. we must first give back to God his part of what He has given us. When we choose not to do that we are choosing not to live under God's protection as far as our finances go! You may feel like you don't have a choice...but at some point we all had the choice to put God at the top of our list above our bills. One way to keep God at the top is to stay out of debt... to delay what we get by saving for it first.

The good thing is that if we have gotten ourselves in a place where we are totally unable to honor God with the first tenth of our income... God honors our efforts our earnest efforts... we can start out with what we can do...and work up to our tenth. With each bill we pay off we can add that to our giving to God... as we increase our giving...as we make the effort to get to our tenth... God will increase our provisions..in Malachi 3:6-12 God talks about our tithes... and God even says that we can test Him and see if he protects our provisions when we give our tithes. God will take care of our money and what it will do for us... if we first acknowledge that our money comes straight from God. When we give back to God the first part of what God has given to us.. that is us saying God I understand that all I have is from you! When God knows that we know that and we show that we know it by our actions... God will pour out his blessings on us so much that we won't have room to store it.. (Malachi 3:10).

We miss out on so much when we don't acknowledge God in all that we have... but on the other hand we are given so much when we stop and realize, and give God the credit for all he has given us. Our lives become more and more abundent when we understand that everything, every single thing we have is a gift straight from God. Our part is to show God that we we know, that we know, that we know, that what we have is all His... given as a gift to us!

1.11.12

2012-01-11T07:41:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 31:30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised.

My Thoughts

When my children were little I would always tell them "Pretty is as pretty does." It is so true...we often meet a beautiful person with hateful actions and at some point we don't even seem them as pretty any more. Then again we can meet a plain person that is loving and kind and when we get to know them all we see is beauty... we know that a room lights up when they walk in... in our minds and in our hearts they are beautiful.

We have also seen somebody that we knew could be beautiful "if"...we are not sure of the "if" but we see the potential there for beauty.

Love shines through no matter! God is love... if we love God we are in turn filled with great love..... and that love will fill a room... no matter how old we get or how many wrinkles we have... love makes us beautiful. There is a quote that I love that says "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you do, but people will never forget how you made them feel." When we people make us feel loved they are the most beautiful people in the world.

When we seek after God the fist thing that happens is we feel loved...that alone changes us... it shows. I remember just a couple of months after I started reading my Bible, I ran into a friend that I had worked with. She said "Jeannie, what is different about you? You glow!" I knew what was different about me...I felt totally loved and protected by God. I told her that too! God's love had made me glow!! The next thing that happens when we seek after God and get filled to overflowing with His love... that overflowing of love has to spill out..and it spills out to the people around us...we begin to make them fell loved. We become beautiful because we glow with God love..and because we make them feel good! No cosmetic in the world can make us as beautiful as the love of God can! And God's love doesn't was off!

1.10.12

2012-01-10T05:54:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

My Thoughts

We are to trust in God with ALL our heart... that means that when we are frustrated, or upset or even angry at someone we can tell God about it. When we trust God with this part of us He will help us. God will show us what to do.

This is the one I have the hardest time with myself.. I go to God with so much now... with my joy, with my pain...with my fears.... with my worry... with my excitement.... but I still have a hard time going to God with my anger and frustration. Not because God does not want to hear it, God will help me with it! I think its is more because I have always been the people pleas-er, the peace maker, I have always kept my anger and upset inside me, hidden from the world. God does not act like the world... God cares about what my frustrations are... God wants to help me work through everything... God has an answer for everything and He will show me what to do. I just have to be brave enough to trust God with even my anger and frustration. Logically I understand this... I read it in my Bible... I know it is true. I just have to let go and trust God with even the part of me that I am not comfortable with.

I so needed this verse! God knows what I need...he made me aware today of this very verse in all my verses God made sure I saw this one.

If we want God to help us with everything... we have to learn to give everything to God.

1.9.12

2012-01-09T08:48:00.000-08:00

Matthew 7:20 Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruits, so you can identify people by their actions.

My Thoughts

I once worked with a man that talked all the time about being a Christian. When I met him I was impressed by his talk. Then the more I was around him the more I realized that all he was was talk. He was unkind and unfair to his employees. He denied people breaks they were suppose to have, he lied. He jeopardized every employee by not taking care of his duties as manager. He even stole from the store. The store was in danger of closing when he got there...his actions were the final nail in the coffin of the store, the doors did shut and many, many people lost their jobs. This man not only effected the people in the store he also effected their families and his family. His mouth said that he was a Christian, his actions said that he wasn't. The fruit of his spirit was not love.

When we become Christians God puts the Holy Spirit inside us... making us able to grow the fruits of the spirit where are fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5: 22-23). We should be able to see these fruits in our lives.

This man I knew talked about being a Christian was not producing these kinds of fruits at all.

When we find that the fruit that we are producing is not loving and caring..when we find ourselves not being kind..when our lives don't produce goodness..and we feel no joy or peace..... we need to step back and examine our actions. Ask God to show us where our actions are coming from. Sometimes God will show us that we are not walking in love ourselves...sometimes God may show us that someone else is not walking in love and it is effecting us... our answer may be to remove ourselves from a situation that is causing changes in our hearts... we may need to put ourselves back on fertile ground where love can grow where the fruits of the spirit abound.... Either way once we find ourselves not producing fruits of love something in our hearts has changed... it is a caution that we need to refocus... talk with God and get back to a place where we produce the good things that God intended for us to have. We all have out moments...where something wrong gets grafted into our trees... when that happens we need to prune our tree so we only grow in goodness.

It is our duty to take care that our tree grows the fruits of the spirit..we are to be diligent (1 Timothy 4:15) to make sure that our lives reflect our hearts...as Christians our hearts are made for love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self- control and forbearance. When we go to God and say something had grafted the wrong fruit on my tree... God will gently prune our tree and make it right again. Our part is to make time to notice what is amiss and to go to God for help.

1.8.12

2012-01-08T06:19:00.000-08:00

Matthew 7:3-5 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.

My Thoughts

I have heard of this verse for a long as I can remember. I always understood it meant don't judge others for their sins when you are sinning yourself. Now I better understand that if we ever get to the point where we don't have a speck in our eye, we will be to the point where we have enough love and compassion that we don't judge the person with the speck, we instead try to help them. When we get that far we have the understanding that there is usually something that needs healing in a persons life that causes them to act the way they do. Our part is to reach out and help. To heal the broken hearted... to share the love of Jesus.

I so try not to judge others.... I have always know that we could never really know why someone acted the way the act unless we had lived their lives... but so often I still find myself judging.... Verse 6 tells us not to waste what is holy on those who are unholy and not to throw our pearls to the pigs. They will be trampled on. This is where I get confused...when am I judging somebody and when am I making a sound judgment to step back and move on? I never want to be judgmental...but I also don't want to be taken advantage of. Yet when I step back and try and figure out if I am being taken advantage of...due to examination of what I see I feel judgemental. I would really love some input on this!

1.7.12

2012-01-07T08:38:00.000-08:00

Mark 4:18-19 The seed that fell among the thorns represents others who hear God’s word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life, the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things, so no fruit is produced.

My Thoughts

The devil loves to plant worries in our mind. Give us things we don't need to want to distract us. When we are busy wanting and worrying we are not busy thinking on God's words, God's promises, God's commandments. Psalms 43:10 tells us that if we seek God that we will not lack any good thing. So if we set our mind on God...everything else will be provided for by God. The devil will take every opportunity, every situation he can to get our mind off God!... If making us want doesn't work he will make us worry. God promises to take care of all our needs. God promises to make our lives overflowing with his blessings... God wants to pour out his blessings on us!... Our part, and we always have a part, is to keep our hearts and our minds on God, on God's word, on God commandments. Then God takes care of the rest.

When you find yourself wanting, when you find yourself worrying... have God's word handy. If you have to write a few verses on an index card and keep it in your pocket...or put a reminder in your phone that comes up several times a day with a verse... do what ever it takes to think on God and his promises... don't let the devil choke our the wonderful love of God. When we take time for God, with God... God takes care of us.

2012-01-06T08:31:00.000-08:00

1 Corinthians 2:9 That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.

My Thoughts

Most of us have always known that Jesus died for our sins... but the people that lived before Jesus died for our sins could not even imagine that kind of love. I think so often we have heard this without stopping to think, truly of Jesus dieing for us, each of us individually... actually dieing for the things that we have done wrong.

Then there are those things that God does for us daily, all the things we have, all the abilities we have, all the people that we have that love us...they are gifts straight from God. They are there for us all the time yet we go through whole days, sometimes weeks... and sadly sometimes years without even giving notice that God provided all those things for us.

If we would stop and think about how much God does for us daily....then stop and think that God gave the ultimate gift, His Son, to die for our sins... just think of all there is out there that God has in store that falls in-between what God gives us daily...and the great gift of His Son. There is so much that God has stored up for us... so much more than we can think of or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). God has blessing held in heaven that He can't wait to pour out on us. I believe that God waits for us to ask because God wants us to be aware of just how much He love us. If we just get it we often think it is by chance. We think it is because we did something wonderful. We think somebody else did something wonderful for us. We forget to notice that what we have been given is because God loves us so much. If God waits for us to ask...then He gives us something that we can't possibly get on our own... we can have no doubt that our gift is straight from God...when that happens we have at least a moment of knowing, of being aware that "God loves me!" God wants us to be full of those moments... God wants us to feel wrapped in His love... God loves doing for us because He loves us so much. When we are aware of that we can open ourselves up for so many of God's blessings because it makes God happy to make us feel loved!

1.5.12

2012-01-05T07:57:00.000-08:00

James 4:7 So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

My Thoughts

When we put God above us... when we make God more important than us ... when we put what we want second to what God ask of us....that is humbling ourselves. When we do this...and stand firm against what the devil tempts us to do ... God makes sure that the devil flees. With God we are always stronger than the devil. That is God's grace working in is! How awesome is that!! I love it!

1.4.12

2012-01-04T17:24:00.000-08:00

Isaiah 10:27 In that day the Lord will end the bondage of his people. He will break the yoke of slavery and lift it from their shoulders.

My Thoughts

I love that God sent Jesus and that Jesus was willing to die for our sins that we can be free of the bondage of Satin! With God's grace we can always defeat the devil! 1 John 4:4 tells us that He that is in me is greater than he that is in the world... We can call on the Holy Spirit inside us. We are free of bondage.... we are no longer under the slavery of sin. Each time we find ourselves defeating the urge to sin we have a history to draw from... the more we let the Holy Spirit lead us the more we are aware of his voice inside our souls. What a blessings that we know that we have the Grace of God, the Blood of Jesus and the Holy Spirit inside us.... When we are tempted, when the devil keeps trying to thwart our plans of good... we have the strength every time to do what is right to persevere because Jesus removed our yoke of slavery... and God provides us his Grace! We are so very blessed!

1.3.12

2012-01-03T10:09:00.000-08:00

Ephesians 4:31-32 Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

My Thoughts

I love that God supplies us with His grace to make it possible to do anything He ask us to do. Here God ask us to get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, slander and all type of evil behavior. God will send down His grace to make us able to rid ourselves of all these things. Our part is to to ask for God to help us... we need to make ourselves aware of these behaviors so that we can work at doing what God ask and God will send down His grace to make us able.

I am finding that I can't get rid of one behavior without replacing it with another... in this scripture God give us exactly what we can replace our bad behaviors with good things. We can replace our bitterness with kindness...we can replace anger and rage by being tenderhearted... instead of being harsh toward one another and talking about each other we can be forgiving toward one another... if we find that hard to do we can remind ourselves that God forgave us of everything we have done... and God gives us His grace to forgive anybody of anything.

We have all met bitter people, people filled with rage and anger...the longer we know them the worse their life seems to get... the harder they are to be around. Then there are those people that are always kind, tenderhearted.... that seem to forgive everybody everything...they are like a magnet drawing people in. They seem to light up a room.... they make you feel good just to be in their presence..they are such a joy in our lives. This is just another example of how our lives improve when we listen to God and do what He ask. God wants our lives to be overflowing... His word gives us the tools to make it so! His grace gives us the ability to use those tools.

1.2.12

2012-01-02T07:12:00.000-08:00

Psalms 2:1-3 Why are the nations so angry? Why do they waste their time with futile plans? The kings of the earth prepare for battle; the rulers plot together against the Lord and against his anointed one. Let us break the chains,"they cry, "and free ourselves from the slavery to God."

My Thoughts

We go about wondering why our economy is so bad. Why gas prices and grocery prices are so high. Why unemployment is high. Why our country falls further and further behind. It is because we have failed to worship God, to put God first in our lives! Deuteronomy 28:1-13 tells us that if we obey God's commands he will set us above all the nations of the earth! He will bless our towns, fields, crops, our children, our fruit baskets and our bread baskets that we will prosper wherever we go! God will establish us and give us prosperity if we obey His commands.

We keep putting our hope into our government to save us... to make rules that will protect us. We need to all get on our knees to God... we need to learn his commands so that we know what it is we are to be keeping. When we put God first our nation, our cities, our children, our land, our works will prosper... when we put God first he won't let us fail! When we put God first we don't even have to do things smart... God will take care of us. When we think we are so smart that we don't need God then it doesn't even matter how smart we become all our plans will be futile!

If we want unemployment to be smaller, gas prices to drop, groceries to be lower... if we want prosperity in our homes and in our land...in our country we as a nation have to turn back to God. The healing of the United States starts with Christians setting our hearts and minds on God... it starts with us getting on our knees... the rest God will take care of! America was built on the right to worship God, people flocked here and our nation grew by leaps and bound... America became great overnight because we loved God and kept his commands... We can be that great nation again...we can grow strong again! We can grow stronger than before... it is in our hands to put our country in God's hands...in God's hands everything prospers!

1.1.12

2012-01-01T06:11:00.000-08:00

Psalms 1:1-3 Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.

My Thoughts

I love this promise. It makes me feel happy.... it gives me hope! We can just do the first part without the second though. We have to delight in the law of God, meditating on it day and night. If we don't hang out with sinners... take advice from ungodly people... if we don't stand around with others making fun of people. If instead we learn out Bible verses and think about them....think of how to carry out what God has planted in our hearts to do. If that is what we put in our minds all through out the day and night. Then we will have joys..not joy, but joys and we will prosper in ALL that we do!

This verse makes me think of King David...he was always thinking about God... writing songs about all that God had done before him. King David always prospered. The only times that King David had problems is when he took his eyes off God. God took care of David and God will take care of us. We just have to keep our eyes on Him. We have to get busy making time to think about God...learning his laws and thinking about them all the time. We have to study people and make sure that they are Godly before we ask for their advice... we need to make sure that the people that we hang out with love the Lord...and we should never, ever make fun of people we have no idea why they do the things they do...instead if we ever have the urge to do so that should be our reminder to pray for these people.. to see if there is anything we can do to help them. When we do these things God will take care of us. Isn't this exciting!!

I look back and see how much God took care of me when I didn't do these things... and it excites me to think of how much more God will take care of me when I do do these things! Just the thought makes me happy!!

12.31.11

2011-12-31T07:30:00.000-08:00

Mark 11:25-26 But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.

My Thoughts

This seemed like a perfect verse for the last day of the year. To start 2012 a new, with no grudges against anyone. To start 2012 with total forgivness .... to start 2012 being totally forgiven.

I remember getting to this verse my first time through the Bible... it really terrified me!! I knew I had unforgivness in my heart! Big things that were so hard to forgive... then there were stupid little things that people had done to me, probably not even knowing ..... that were still lingering there, unforgiven. For some reason we tend to hold on to some things... almost as if stiring up a bit of anger gives us energy. Then there are the things that seem impossible to forgive.... those big hurts that are kept seceret from the world.... often from the people you trust the most. They felt just impossible to forgive.

Then I got started saying my "I forgive's" at the beginning of every prayer. If I still felt unforgiveness deep in the pit of my stomach... in my soul...I would forgive yet again the thing that I had forgiven yesterday, and the day before, and the week before that. The amazing thing is that when God sees that we are earnest in wanting to do what He ask of us He sends down His grace and makes us able. I actually remember praying one day and saying my "I forgive" over something I had been praying a couple of months over and realizing that I didn't have that feeling in my gut any more...that my shoulders were not held down by the pain of my memories... because, with God's grace, I had forgiven. Do I still, sometimes, remember those hurts long, long, long ago?... I do! But they are not painful.... it amazes me when it happens! The devil tires to put unforgivness in my head, but my forgiveness came from my heart. I am now able to tell the devil that is done with and forgiven... I am a child of God and God makes it possible for me to have forgiveness.

Sometimes still I find new things lingering that I have forgotten to forgive.... sometimes I have to be reminded to forgive. That is where reading my Bible over and over comes in handy... it reminds me what God ask of me. It also reminds me that Jesus in his great gift for us makes all things possible. That God wants my life better, full of joy and that He doesn't ask me to do anything he has not given me the strength and ability to do.

I look forward to another year of reading and learning about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and me. I am so excited about the changes there are to come... I can't wait to see how much stronger God makes me in 2012... God did amazing things in my life in 2011... when I spend time with God my life just gets better and better!

Did I go through hard things in 2011? I did! I lost my mom.... that is the hardest thing I have ever faced. But, facing it with God made all the difference! It made me stronger... I knew that I didn't have to do it alone.... I knew that God was there! Every time that the devil wanted to make me feel guilt or pain I just turned to God and said "God I know that you are there! I know that you will help me!" That moment of intense pain would pass.... God would give me strength. I know that God is the God of the mountains and the God of the valleys. He is always, always with me! He even gives me His grace so I can forgive!

12.30.11

2011-12-30T07:16:00.000-08:00

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;but if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing.

My Thoughts

Love is so powerful! Love makes brides glow and babies grow.... love shows! Love is why families, with all their imperfections, and all the ways that they can hurt one another, still get together on holidays and hug each other and tell stories. Love is why men go to work at jobs the sometimes hate... they love their families! Love is why mamma's stay up late in the night when their children are sick. It is why children's faces light up when their daddies walk into a room. When we love somebody else there is just nothing we won't do for them.

God wants us to love others... if we all got busy loving others instead of loving ourselves imagine how the world would change! Imagine what it would be like to go to Wal-Mart if we all treated each other with love! What if we would spread love outside our family units?

I know that I myself could love others more... love is an action.... not a feeling! We need to put love into action! 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 tells us that Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

I am not suppose to be jealous or boastful or proud or rude...I am not suppose to demand my own way... I am not suppose to be irritable... or keep a record of when somebody hurts my feelings....I should never rejoice in injustice.... I should feel joy when the truth wins out. I should never give up on anybody... I should never lose faith in anybody...I should always be hopeful..and endure, endure, endure! Oh I have so much work to do... I am just never sure how to go about it!! My efforts are to always be sweet and kind to the people that I do come in contact with...to show love... to take an extra moment to make the people I come in contact with see love in my eyes... but there is so much more to do!!

As I read this I was reminded of a video I say some time back...this man just touched my heart! He puts love into action!! So I wanted to share it with you.... Watch how this man shows love!!

12,29.11

2011-12-29T08:38:00.000-08:00

Psalms 58:10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

My Thoughts

I love this...when we feel our heart is impure.... when we feel like we are not staying right there with God... longing after Him... all we have to do is ask God to help us. We just have to say... I know my heart is not pure God, please make it pure. I know that I have not been seeking after you like I should please put in me the desire to do so! We just have to ask... we just have to have the want to, then God will do the rest! Just Amazing!!

12.28.11

2011-12-28T07:46:00.000-08:00

Zechariah 12:1 This message concerning the fate of Israel came from the Lord: "This message is from the Lord, who stretched out the heavens, laid the foundations of the earth, and formed the human spirit.

My Thoughts

I loved this..."who formed the human spirit!!" We can look at the vastness of the earth...and of the creations...all the splendor and beauty... and it can just take our breath away. The grand canyon, the Smokey Mountains, the ocean, beautiful falls of rushing water... flowers in the spring time.... We understand that God made all of that! When we stop to think about it we are amazed. The heavens... the stars, the moon and sun... other planets... so much out there that we don't understand ....but when we look up on a clear night... or are lucky enough to see a meteor shower.. we are amazed at all that God created! It can be mind boggling.

I have stopped in my lifetime and been amazed at the outstretched heavens...and the beautiful wonders of the earth... but, I have never stopped to be amazed at the human spirit that belongs to me. Yet when I stop and really think about it... I know that it is amazing! I love how in this verse God, himself, tells us that he formed the human spirit. I imagine Him taking our spirit first and holding it in His hands and molding it as He spoke strength and resilience into it... He spoke love and compassion into it.... our spirit is small enough to fit inside of us yet large enough to hold so much ... our spirit not our minds holds the information that God exist...that God loves us... that God is peace and love and joy.... our spirit can hold all that God will give us and yet fit inside our earthly bodies. That is truly amazing. I imagine that God said... you spirit, Jeannie's spirit you are meant to be loved by Me... you are made to love Me back.... and you are meant to take that love and spread it out into the world... You spirit are strong enough to bounce back when the devil finds his way in... you, spirit are meant to always seek after me and when you do you will experience love, joy, happiness, peace beyond the ability for the mind that is attached to you, to understand. I imagine that God held our spirit in His hands and formed it... talked over it.... blessed it....loved it as he placed it into our human bodies. That spirit is why we can endure so much on this earth and keep going.

That spirit inside each and every one of us... our spirit...where God sends the Holy Spirit to dwell.... is amazingly, wonderfully made... formed by God, himself. Our spirit is more special than the most exotic flower... or the biggest water fall... it is more amazing than the planets we have yet to discover. We need to cherish our spirits enough to fill them with the things they were made for.... treat them like the wonderful wonder that they are. We need to take the time to feed our spirits with all that God wants us to know... after all God took the time to form our spirit before He placed it in our bodies... and it serves us well, it gets us through, it urges us on... our spirit is where our strength and love comes from... our spirit, after all, is who we are...this body and mind that we carry around on this earth is just the vessel to house it. What will you do to nourish your spirit today? That spirit that God, Himself took the time to form. I know that I will forever see my spirit differently after today.

12.27.11

2011-12-27T07:48:00.000-08:00

Psalm 146:8b The Lord lifts up those who are weighed down. The Lord loves the godly.

My Thoughts

I love this! God has so lifted me up this past year! So many times... I could not have gotten through the death of my mom had I know grown so close to God. Sure I would have made it when my mom died... but it would have been so much harder...I would have gone into a deep depression, I am sure had I not had the relationship I now have with God. God loved me so much, that even when I didn't know him like I should, he set it up so I would be close to Him when my mom died. I will always believe that! God knew that I had the desire to love Him, and that I just didn't know how. God put my One Year Bible in my hand through my son so that I would read it. God put Life Church in my path so that I would be surrounded by people that would help me grow. Then when I faced the hardest thing I have ever faced God lifted me up.

I have learned so much in the past two years about giving all my cares to God! It is amazing how much my world is the same but my life is so completely different!! Now when I feel myself going into one of those places that use to put me to bed for days!! I first tell the devil that God is on my side and that I will not believe his lies. Then I give my day to God. I say, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13)." I talk to God about what is bothering me. I repeat scripture that builds me up and makes me know that I am not alone, I know that I have God who is bigger than anything in the world (1John 4"4). Before you know it I am going about my business feeling pretty joyful and I have forgotten that I had even started to get upset. Actually completely forgotten that I was even about to be upset! Then later in the day I remember and think I can't even believe that I let that upset me for a minute!!... I am talking about a problem that use to put me to bed from stress!!! God does lift up those who are weighed down! I am constantly amazed at the love that God has for me! God loves to take care of us! Our part, and we always have a part, is to give all our cares to God and let God do the rest.

My wish for 2012 is that I can reach somebody, make them understand that reading God's word will change their life...and that their relationship with God grows as much as mine has. That one day I can hear them say what I feel, that the joy of the Lord is my strength!! God is so good! God loves us so much! God is bigger than anything we face in this world. God wants to take care of us...we just have to learn how to let Him.

12.26.11

2011-12-26T07:40:00.000-08:00

Psalms 145:20 The Lord protects all those who love him, but he destroys the wicked.

My Thoughts

I love this!! If we just love God, really love God we become so precious to him that he protects us. It doesn't say he protects us when we are perfect. It doesn't say He protects us if we never sin. He protects us if. It says God protects all those who love Him. When we love God he is always watching over us!!... Always. The wonderful thing about loving God is when we do, we we get to know God enough to really, truly love him, he gives us the desire and the power to do better (Philippians 2:13). So even as we are learning...even as our desire is growing, even as our power is growing, God is protecting us.

We see so many things as lucky when luck has nothing to do with it..it is God with his mighty hand protecting us. Those are the moments that we can see...the moments when we almost have a wreak or we almost fall. Moments when we almost do the wrong thing but do the right thing instead...that is God protecting us! There are no telling how many times in a day when I life could have changed in an instant that we don't even know about. Times when we run into a friend that seems to take to long...times when we end up in the "long" check out line....that could be God keeping us out of harms way... we just never know what God does protect us from. All we have to know is that when we love God, truly love God, He protect us all the time.

Next time we have a moment when you think "Oh, man was I lucky!" We need to top and thank God for being there to protect us!

12.24.11

2011-12-24T07:33:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 30:24 25 Ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer.

My Thoughts

This verse tells me that no matter our size or strength that we can prepare, even if it is a little bit at a time. We can go about doing our part. We can stay busy, busy and be prepared even if what we do is a little bit at a time. Keeping at it matters...keeping at it works. It also says to me that we are to prepare for things that are going to come up. We need to store up a savings for those unexpected times.... the only thing certain about the unexpected is that we can expect the unexpected. God expects us to prepare for the things that lie ahead. I think we are being told here.. you do you part...keep busy and if you keep busy and do your part, I will take care of the rest. I needed this today!!

12.23.11

2011-12-23T11:39:00.000-08:00

Zechariah 4:6 The he said to me, "This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by the Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven's Armies."

My Thoughts

God was saying that Zerubbable could do what God wanted because God was giving him the Spirit. He wouldn't win because he was strong or because he was smart...he would accomplish what he was told to do by God because God was putting the Holy Spirit inside him to make it possible!

When we ask Jesus into our heart, God sends the Holy Spirit to live inside of us... giving us the ability, because of the Holy Spirit to do what God ask us to do!! There is always a right answer to any problem.... and answer that God wants us to choose.... and answer that God gives us when we ask. If we choose God's way, God makes it possible to accomplish what he tells us to do. Even if the right answer is the hard answer God will get us through it because he has given us the strength of the Holy Spirit. When we choose God's way it is always easiest...if not in the moment, it is in the long run. God protects us when we choose to do what is right. God gave us the wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit to get us through, to make us able, to help us stand against our enemy satin... God makes it possible for us to win when we depend on The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We should never believe the devil when he tells us something is just too hard...we should always believe what God says "All things are possible through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:12) All things...!!!

12.22.11

2011-12-22T08:45:00.000-08:00

Mark 4:19 I will not let the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke out the word, making it unfruitful.

My Thoughts

Oh wow...this is a good verse... it says to me that I need to keep God's word in my heart and mind and on my lips...not my worries...not my wants...God's word. When I do this God's word will take root and grow stronger than anything I might face. The word of God is so powerful...more powerful than worry, more powerful than wealth or anything else we think we need or want! But, God's word is only powerful if we us it...if we speak it... if we meditate on it. God gives us His word for our use, to change our lives for the better! God has planted the seed in our lives...we are responsible for tending to it. If we plant a garden and never again think about the plants in the garden because we are busy with other things those plants will die. We have to think on God's word... we have to speak God's word.... our possibilities are endless when we use the power God has entrusted us with. Our part, and we always have a part, is to learn God's word so much that it is a part of who we are... that it is in all our actions, all of our conversations, all of our prayers... so that is reflected in our lives every part of every day!. I have so much to learn and so far to go.... I am so blessed that I have come this far.

Thank you Dear God for your word...thank you that your word is living today.. thank you that your word was here in the beginning... is here now and will be here in the end... thank you for giving us such a gift. Thank you for Jesus! Thank you for loving us so much! In Jesus name, Amen

12.21.11

2011-12-21T06:47:00.000-08:00

Psalm 140:13 Surely righteous people are praising your name; the godly will life in your presence.

My Thoughts

Surely righteous people are praising your name!!... I can't believe how long it took me in my life to learn to praise God throughout the day!! God made me right with him by sending His son, Jesus to die on the cross for my sins. Psalms 121:4 tells us that God never rest that God is always watching over us. Yesterday I was on the phone with my daughter as she was driving home from work.... she laid the phone down to cross over some traffic.... I heard her thank God that the traffic opened up for her... it made me smile. There is so much I need to remember to thank God for... to praise God for!! Our minds are so often just idle... filled with random thoughts... our minds are a playground for Satin himself when we let them wander. Oh how Satin loves to attack us and tell us what we have done wrong... how we are not enough... anything that will frustrate us or make us feel anxious. If we fill our mind with thoughts of praise, if we stay constantly aware of what God is doing in our day and remember to say "Thank you, God." When our mind is busy with God, Satin has less room! And we draw God closer!

We have all had those days when we spent our whole day doing for our families.... our spouses, our children and thought, "I wish somebody would notice, would just say thank you!!" All that we have comes from God, the air we breath, the beauty we see, the heat in our homes, the food on our table, our health, our loved ones, our TVs and computers, our animals... the beds we sleep on..the covers we cuddle under... everything is a gift from God. Yet we can go days without remembering to even udder a thank you. When we should have thank you on our tongue so often that we have to stop those "thanks yous" to have a conversation. Yet we go about so busy with our conversations that we don't say the "thank yous."

The more I become aware of God and all His goodness, the more I say thank you. But, I still don't tell God thank you near enough. As I sit here and look at my Christmas tree, with it collection of 31 years worth or ornaments I don't remember, until just this moment, ever telling God thank you for any of them. How sad that makes me, each of those ornaments have a memory, a pleasant, happy moment that God took the time to plan out for me. The ones on the tree from my children have a memory of something that represented a special something that we, they enjoyed that year. Each ornament is tied to so much I should have said thank you, to God, for.

The wonderful thing about God is... when I say today, "God I am so sorry that I didn't say thank you near enough." God will forgive me. God will smile, God will tell my heart that what is important is that I am learning to thank Him and praise Him now. I have come so far, but I still have so far to go! Today, my goal for the rest of my days is to be aware, totally aware of God's constant presence in my life and to remember to say thank you, all day long, every day. God is so good to me, not only do I want to remember to thank Him. I want to remember to be constantly aware that everything I have, God gave me.

When we become so totally aware that God is so constantly present in all that we are, in all that we have,in all that we do we can't help but feel loved! The more we feel love the more we give love. Total awareness of God's presence in our lives is life changing. When those life changing moments come from God they are only good!

12.20.11

2011-12-20T07:55:00.000-08:00

Haggai 1:3-9 Then the Lord sent this message through the prophet Haggai: Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins? This is what the Lord of Heaven's Armies says: Look at what is happening to you! You have planted much but harvest little. You eat but are not satisfied. Your drink but are still thirsty. you put on clothes but cannot keep warm. Your wages disappear as thought you were putting them in pockets filled with holes! This is what the Lord of heavens armies says: Look at what's happening to you! Now go up into the hills, bring down timber and rebuild my house. Then I will take pleasure in it and be honored says the Lord. You hoped for a rich harvest, but they were poor and when your brought your harvest home, I blew it away. Why? Because my house lies in ruins, says the Lord of Heavens Armies, while all of you are busy building your own fine homes.

My Thoughts

Wow... oh wow! Today for the first time I saw this as a testament to how important tithing is! We often go about thinking we don't have enough money to tithe... I know we did that for so long! It just didn't seem like we had enough to tithe... God gives us all that we have!! Then we fail to take care of our Church, God's house by giving our 10%. We fail to make sure God's house is taken care of while we fill our houses with gadgets and toys... while we buy more clothes than we truly need... while we put fill our garages so full of stuff that we can't put our cars in them... while we rent storage for our stuff.... while we have yard sells to get rid of our junk.... we do all this and think we don't have money to take care of God's house! Here God was saying your house is not prospering because you have neglected My house. If you want your money to go far... if you want your clothes to keep you warm...if you want your food to keep you full it is simple... take care of My house then I will take care of yours!

One hundred percent of what we have is from God... all he as in return is 10% of that 100% ... then God will take care of the 90%. When we give back to God what he ask for it is us saying ... God thank you, I understand that all I have is from you...I trust you to take care of me and all of my needs. I know that 10% is a lot!! I know that we can look at that 10% and see that it could do so much if we used it for our needs....but here God tells us...look as long at you are not taking care of My house...and long as your are not trusting me to take care of your 90% your money, your hard work, your harvest can not be protected by me...when you trust me enough to give to My house, then I will make sure that your 90% never runs out!!

Luke 6:38 says that Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back. God is telling us here...you give me 10% and I will give it back to you... with more.

It took us forever to trust this... and what I have found... what has happened to us since we started doing this is amazing. When we kept that 10% we often had to go to our savings to take care of the unexpected... even when we were doing out best to take good care of our money.... even after we paid everything off.... things would come up that we needed that were beyond our weekly income.. since we have learned to trust God .... and we started with less than 10%, but we started...when we did that amazing things started to happen... here we were giving what we didn't feel like we could afford to give and all the sudden our paycheck kept meeting even our unexpected needs...then we slowly were able to give more to God... slowly reaching our 10%... the closer we got to that 10% the more money we had left over after even the unexpected bills came in.... now we meet the unexpected. and we have play money...now our savings grows...it is amazing that we always have the extra when extra is needed. That investment that we make into God's house makes our money grow in so many unexpected ways.

God is always saying to us... show your faith in me by doing this... when you do this will happen! God told Moses to strike the rock with his staff when he did water came pouring out... but Moses had so strike the rock... He told the people to march around the walls of Jericho..when they did the walls came tumbling down. God tells us...give to my house!!... Give me 10% when you do I will take care of your 90%. Your pockets will not have holes.. your clothes will keep you warm... your food will make you full...your harvest will come in. But first I have to know that you are depending on me.

Tithing is the only place where God tells us to test Him... Malachi 3:10 says Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do," says the LORD of Heaven's Armies, "I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!...God says test me and I will show you that I will take care of you!! When we give to God... God always give us more back in return!!

Does money fall through holes in your pocket? It use to fall through the holes in mine no matter what we seemed to do right... we just had to learn that the right thing was giving back to God the part He ask us for...that made all the difference!

12.19.11

2011-12-19T07:16:00.000-08:00

Psalms 138:8 The Lord will work out his plans for my life -- for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever. Don't abandon me for you made me.

My Thoughts

I love this...the Lord will work out His plans for my life.... I have to give my life to Him... completely hand it over, if I do my life can only be good! My plans for me can only reach as far as I the knowledge I have of the world... which is so small compared to the knowledge of God!! I really don't know much past my small town.... my education is limited to some college and cosmetology school. What I know of jobs is limited to what my parents were, my husband is, what I have done (hair and retail) and to what my children are becoming.... my friends fit into this range as well. But God knows all... His is all knowing... His abilities are limitless.... His power is awesome... and His love for me, well that is far beyond anything I could hope for or imagine. If I put my life in God's hands and say "Make of me, God, what you will." there is no telling what I can do or become!! And whether to the world it is great, or to the world it is small, God has the perfect plan for my life! If I let God have control, if I listen to God and do what God ask, God will be so proud of me! If we make God proud, life just doesn't get any better than that!!

12.18.11

2011-12-18T06:37:00.000-08:00

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

My Thoughts

We so often think of love as just an overwhelming feeling... like we feel when we fall in love, or when we hold a new baby for the first time. But, love is a choice. Love is a decision we make. God commands us to even love our enemy. That for sure is a choice to make, not an overwhelming feeling we get. We are to love our neighbors...and of course we are to love our families. Here we are told what love is... patient, kind, not jealous or boastful or proud or rude, Love does not demand it's own way, it is not irritable, love does not keep record of being wronged. love does not rejoice with injustice but when the truth wins out. Love never gives up or looses faith. Love is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. We are called to love everybody. No matter how we feel we are to love.

My pastor's wife said she likes to put her name in the place of the word love to test to see if she is doing what she should...... Jeannie is patient and kind... Jeannie is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Jeannie does not demand her own way. Jeannie is not irritable (oops!!!). Jeannie keeps no record of being wronged (oh no!!). Jeannie does not rejoice about in injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins our. Jeannie never gives up (oh no!!). Jeannie never looses faith (getting much better). Jeannie is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance (must work on these things.)

I want to be love at all times... but to do that I must separate it from my feelings and put love into action...make the choice to love at all times. When we do what is right our feeling will follow... so often we have learned to follow our feelings. No wonder we are all messed up and selfish today. We all go about following our feelings.. if we want good feelings we have to do what God ask of us no matter how we feel. When we are good, good feelings will follow. Life only gets better when we love... these verses tell us just what love really is.

12.17.11

2011-12-17T07:44:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 30:7-9 Oh God, I beg two favors from you; let me have them before I die. First, help me never to tell a lie. Second, give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, "Who is the Lord?" And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God's holy name.

My Thoughts

I really love this!! It was such a wise prayer that God made sure that it was included in His word to last for all the generations to see. First it is so important to never tell a lie. Yet society teaches us that sometimes we need to tell "white" lies. We need to be aware and on our toes... conscious of all that we say. Conscious that if we fall into the trap of a "little white lie" being OK...that soon we will see the next lie as a "white" lie... where does it stop?

The next part is so important too... Give me enough to satisfy my needs...not my wants... my needs! Don't give me so much that I forget where all that I have comes from! Don't make me so poor that I am desperate. In America we have been given so much, by God. We have been so blessed that we often don't know a need from a want. We are so caught up in commercialism that we confuse what we "need" with what we want! "Priceless" has become those things we can't afford but HAVE to have to make life memorable, worth wild! Today people are loosing the actual roof over their heads because they got so busy having to have so many "things" that they risk their homes to pay off their credit cards...so they could put more gadgets, more "priceless" moments on payments. So they could give their kids more toys... but, sadly less time. We get so busy having to have that we forget to say thank you to God for all that He has given us!! Imagine how that must make God feel!! God give us our every need, food, clothing, a roof over our head, heat in the winter, cool air in the summer... he give us health and a job that provides for those things and we fail to say 'thank you God for providing my needs." We fail to wait on what more He wants so shower us with. Instead we go about getting more, by risking what God has provided for us. When we risk what God has given us, even if we say thank you to God, we are not showing our gratitude by our actions. We need to treasure all that God has provided us with, treat it like it is important and matters. When we prove our gratitude by cherishing the needs God has provided us with God will then pour out his blessing on us. Blessings that are far beyond our imagination...more than what we could think to ask for (Ephesians 3:20). Our part is to remember God in all that we have. We need to remember that it is a gift that God has given us when our needs are provided. We need to be so thankful that our needs are met. Then we need to be so totally aware that the extras are just that...extra blessings. The extras can only be blessings if we don't jeopardize the needs God has so gracious supplied us with. We must keep "thank you" in our actions not just in our words. It is essential that we stay aware that God is our provider. When we remember God in everything that we have our "priceless" moments will be beyond our imagination not something to pay for on our credit cards.

12.16.11

2011-12-16T07:01:00.000-08:00

Micah 6:8 No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good and what is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

My Thoughts

Micah was saying look people it is easy... don't make it hard!! Love people! Love God! Listen to God, walk with God... be humble enough to do what God ask. Love mercy!

I looked up mercy so I would know exactly....I thought I knew...but I wanted to be sure I didn't miss a thing.

Mercy is defined as

1. compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power; compassion, pity, or benevolence: Have mercy on the poor sinner.

2. the disposition to be compassionate or forbearing

3. the discretionary power of a judge to pardon someone or to mitigate punishment, especially to send to prison rather than invoke the death penalty.

4. an act of kindness, compassion, or favor: She has performed countless small mercies for her friends and neighbors.

5. something that gives evidence of divine favor; blessing: It was just a mercy we had our seat belts on when it happened.

God does not ask us to do anything he does not do for us! God gives us mercy all the time. God ask us to have mercy for others. God does not say love your neighbors, your enemies if they deserve it... God says love your neighbors, your enemies no matter, have mercy on them!

The definition of mercy seems like something that could be so hard to do in some circumstances...but if you think about it... isn't this how we want others to treat us? Matthew 7:12 tells us to treat others the way we want to be treated. We all, each and every one of us want mercy.

God calls us to love, to love each other all the time...not when we deserve it. Not when somebody else deserves it... but all the time...maybe especially when someone doesn't seem to deserve it. If we love others, each and every one of us, the way we wanted to be loved... no one, not one single person would be in need in this world. Who will you love today? Who will you show mercy to? Mercy has the ability to change the world... mercy is loving others, being kind to others always and in all circumstances.

Mercy is not a feeling we have... it is an act that we do. When we show mercy good feelings will follow... we don't need to wait on the feeling we need to do what is right, we need to do what God ask of us. God does not say "feel mercy," "feel love." God says to have mercy and show love. When we do what God ask of us first..the good feelings will follow.

Today when you are out doing your last minute Christmas shopping and the sales clerk is tired and grumpy..show mercy... smile at them, tell them to have a wonderful day! If the waiter is not as kind as you think they should be, or forgets to fill your tea glass..leave a good tip anyway. When we have mercy on somebody that is having a bad day it changes their day...then instead of them being not so nice to the next person they feel better. Our love and mercy are like the ripples of peddles dropped in the water.... they go on forever, reaching out a little further every time. Mercy and love make a huge difference in the world. Mercy and love have the power to change the world because they comes from the grace of God. Our part, and we always have a part, is to let God work through us giving His mercy and love to each and every person we meet.

12.15.11

2011-12-15T06:57:00.000-08:00

1 Thessalonians 5:18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

My Thoughts

I admit this one was hard for me to get at first. Sometimes I have those moments or days were I just didn't know how to be thankful. I remember thinking what is there in this moment to be thankful for?? The more I know God the more I know how to be thankful! In bad moments I can be thankful for what I am going to learn and how I am going to grow. I can be thankful that God is with me and I know that it could be so much worse without God by my side. I can be thankful that God will give me double for my trouble when I act with grace, compassion and mercy...when I pray for the people that feel like my enemies. I can be thankful that God gives me new days to start over. What I am learning about being thankful in all circumstances is that when I stop to be thankful the weight of what is happening at the moment decreases.... the good begins to feel bigger and the bad smaller. When I am thankful on the bad days and in the bad moments I am more aware that God is with me and that with God all things are possible. When I find things to be thankful for it gets my mind off my troubles and back on God. There is always, ALWAYS something to be thankful for! When I am thankful it draws God near... so even if the problem I am having is bigger than me... it is never bigger than God.

I see it like this in my mind...when I am drowning in a problem... it can feel like I am being swallowed up by the sea...but when I call out to God and tell him thank you, He parts the water...makes the land dry beneath my feet.... and I am able to handle anything with His grace. Then I am thankful that God loves me so much that he would part the waters and not let me drown in my problems.

12.14.11

2011-12-14T08:03:00.000-08:00

Jonah 4:11 (God said)But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn't I feel sorry for such a great city?"

My Thoughts

Nineveh was a bad, sinful city!! Really bad ... they had murdered many, many people. Destroyed many cities and took the plunder. God knew that most of these people had never learned about Him... God cared about the people of Nineveh and wanted them to have a better life. God cares about all of us, God feels sorry for us when we don't know how to make better choices. God wants us to have a second chance... God wants us to make our lives better... to live in his light and in his love!! God cares for each and every one of his Children... God made us all...God wants us all to have a chance to know him... a chance to do better. God loves us and wants us to have a good life. No matter what we have done God still loves us each and every one!!

12.13.11

2011-12-13T06:40:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 29:25 Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the Lord means safty.

My Thoughts

I lived so much of my life in fear of people...not horribly afraid.... just in fear of making somebody upset at me... or afraid of disjointing someone... or fear of someone not liking me. I admit that many times I did things I didn't want to do, things I knew were not the right thing to do, because of that fear. I would often make wrong choices for what felt like the right reasons. Then I had to go about living with the shame of doing wrong. It was a horrible way to live, in constant fear. This is not a fear that anybody put on me... it was a fear that I took on myself. It was something the devil used to control me. And I let it work. I didn't really know how to do it different.

As I began to build my relationship with God all that begin to change. I started learning to ask myself if God would be happy with me if. The more I know God the more I am able to make better choices. So often knowing God narrows my choices down to one ... that is actually so freeing to have only one choice. It is definitely freeing to choose to please God over people!! God will only want what is good for me. People often choose what makes them feel good at the moment. When I choose what God would want I get to feel good forever about that particular choice. When I trust in God I have no regret later, I have no guilt later...I have peace in my heart. I even know that if somebody gets upset at me because I didn't do what they wanted it will all be okay because God is in control and he will reward me, he will protect me when I do what He would have me do. God always has my best interest at heart.

If only I had learned this sooner in my life I would have been spared so much grief and guilt and pain. What is important is that I know it now... building a relationship with God only makes life get better, and better and better. And better!!

12.12.11

2011-12-12T07:06:00.000-08:00

Psalms 131:1a-2b I don't concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp. Instead, I have calmed and quited myself like a weaned child who no longer needs his mother's milk.

My Thoughts

I love these words, just love them. David is to the point where he understands that he doesn't have to know because God knows! He doesn't have to worry because God is in control! It doesn't matter how big something is God will take care of it. David just feels calm, peaceful with the action of giving everything to God! It just makes me smile.

I can't wait to be there where David is in this passage! I am so much better than I use to be... the more I know God, the more I study God's word the better I get! But, I still have so far to go!! My anxiety use to be off the chart!!... Often to the point of panic... now I am calm at least 90% of the time or more!!... and that is when I am awake!! The peace of God amazes me every time I stop and think about it.... when I take time to think about the peace of God I always smile... The more I know God, the more I am able to stop myself when an anxiety attack starts. I am able to use God's word, speak it out loud and calm my fears. If it is something that is going to happen that I am starting to worry about...I say "God, you are bigger than anything that I face. You word tells me that you that are in me is greater than anything in the world." If I don't know what I am anxious about I can say "God I have no idea where this is coming from, but I know that you are in control...I am going to trust you because you are bigger than anything I face. Please bring me peace. If I have done something I shouldn't have please forgive me. Please show me what it was so I can do better." When I do this peace comes over me...sometimes I have to keep repeating it until I remember that it is so true. But it always brings me peace..in a matter of a few minutes or even an hour sometimes. Peace always comes..and when I look back I say well look at that...that is something that use to mess me up for days or even a couple of weeks...now it is all better because of the peace of God! That peace has come over me enough that I can draw on the fact that I know when I gave my problem to God last time things were all better. And the time before that and the time before that and.... The more history I have with God the more I understand just what God can and will do in my life. This is what David had, a history with God. A history of God taking care of him. That history, that trust, that knowing is where David got his peace. Where David got his knowledge that God was taking care of the matters to great or too awesome to understand.

God spoke the world into existence... God spoke the darkness and light into being... God spoke the sun and the moon and the stars and the animals into being. If God's words, just his words, can do all that just think how powerful just repeating them out loud is!! We never need as much power as God needed to speak everything into existence... we just need enough to calm our spirit enough to hear what God has to tell us. God's word never comes back void (Isaiah 55:11). God gave us His word to use! God has made sure it survived so much, God wants us to use his word to do battle against the evils of the world. This is something David understood and it brought him peace. It can bring us peace...the more we know God's word the more peace we can have.

12.11.11

2011-12-11T07:10:00.000-08:00

Amos 4:4-6a Now this is what the Lord says to the family of Israel: "Come back to me and live! Don't worship at the pagan alters of Bethel; don't go to the shrines at Gilgal or Beersheba. For the People of Gilgal will be dragged off into exile, and the people of Bethel will be reduced to nothing. Come back to me and live!

My Thoughts

I wonder what God considers our pagan alters and shrines? Is it sports, TV's, shopping malls. I suspect it is anything we spend more time thinking about than we spend thinking about God. For some people it is even work, making money, having the most toys, being better than the Jones. What are our pagan alters and shrines?

I know that I am bad to watch TV... I have gotten better... during the day I keep it turned off...but when 7 pm gets here the TV is on and I am watching TV till 10. What better could I be doing with that time? What could I be doing to honor God?

Don't get all bent out of shape on me...I am just thinking things through.... I am not saying football is bad...but when we think more on football, when we spend more time watching and reading about football... when we think on shopping or what we are going to watch on TV tonight.... but don't make time for God in our day we are putting something before God.

I spend time with God each morning... but, I don't spend time with God each night... yet I watch 3 hours of TV!!... I need to end my day with God... I am beginning to understand that I need to make sure that God is a central part of my day...not just in the morning...but other parts of my day as well!! When we seek after God, when we make God central in our lives, God takes care of the rest.

As Joyce Meyer says "I am not where I need to be, but thank God I am not where I use to be." I am learning... the more I learn the more God puts the desire and the power in me to do what pleases Him" (Philippians 2:13). God wants to be most important in our lives! We have to make the effort to make Him most important.

12.10.11

2011-12-10T06:59:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 29:20 There is more hope for a fool than for someone who speaks without thinking.

My Thoughts

Wow!... We all go about just talking, talking, talking. Most people just have a need to be heard. I know I do...sometimes worse than others. This verse got me to thinking about how we are suppose to seek God in all that we do. That includes opening our mouths. What if every time we started to say something we sent up a quick prayer that our words would be right, what if we asked God to keep our mouth closed if we shouldn't say what we were about to say? I bet a lot of our mouths would be closed, a lot more often. What if we said a quick prayer that our words would be good words, kind words... what if we asked when the phone rang for our ears to listen more than our mouth speaks? I know I think often that I should pray before I answer the phone... but I have been answering the phone all my life without doing that. So I just react without prayer first. That act in itself is pretty foolish.

Romans 12:12 tells us to be in constant prayer.... 1 Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to be in uninterrupted, constant prayer.... that means that we need to pray before speaking. This is for sure something that I need to work on!!

12.9.11

2011-12-09T09:06:00.000-08:00

Revelations 1:3 God blesses the one who reads the words of his prophecy to the church and he blesses all who listen to its message and obey with it says, for the time is near.

My Thoughts

God is always telling us to do what He ask...and always telling us that if we do he will bless us! The only way to do what God aks is to take the time to hear, read and learn what God has commanded us to do. His commandments are for our good... just like we make rules for our children so they will grow up safe and strong, and good... God makes rules for us to make our lives better...and to make the lives of the people around us better. God wants to bless us... he leaves nothing secret making us guess about it so hopefully we will get it right... God tells us exactly what he wants us to do so that he can bless us!!.. Right here He adds "for the time is near." God does not want us to run out of time... to put off what we know we should do...God does not want us to miss out on all that he has in store for us.

I love that, all that God has "in store" for us... I just had this picture in my head of a store filled up with God's blessings... full...packed out!!... Blessings in boxes, ours just for the asking...Jesus paid the price for us to have these blessings... all God ask of us is that we act responsible and follow his rules...the we can have all the things in the store we want if we just ask for it! God is saying... Jesus paid for your sins... and now all I need you to do to get your blessings is be responsible human beings....then I will pour out all these blessings I have "in store" down upon you!

God wants to bless us... God does not want us to miss out on heaven and all those blessings... God loves us so much. We just have to do our part...and we always have a part... we need to learn what God ask of us... we need to become responsible Christians.

12.8.11

2011-12-08T06:59:00.000-08:00

Hosea 10:12 I said, "Plant the good seeds of righteousness and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you."

My Thoughts

This is saying to me... Do what is right, do what I ask you to do and I will make sure that you know how much I love you!!... I will make sure that people love you and that you love people. Soften your heart to doing good... seek after me and I will make you right... I will make your life right...I will make your relationships right... I will make your life good. If you go about doing good...I will take care of the rest.

When we are going about our day making decisions... instead of saying to ourselves "what should I do?" We should say to God... "God, what would you have me do?"... then listen...and let God take care of the rest!!

12.7.11

2011-12-07T06:57:00.000-08:00

Hosea 6:3 Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know him. He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in the early spring.

My Thoughts

Press on.... I looked that up... it means to move forward.... it means to advance, to march on, to press. Another words keep at it!! ... work at it.. do it even when it is hard.... make every effort to know God. That means if we have to get up a little early to make time... or if we have to get books on CD to listen to in the car or if we have to stay up a little late...it is our responsibility to make an effort, to advance our knowledge of God. The more we seek after God the more God give us, so making the time for God is well worth the effort. There is no better dividend on our time. It says right here in Hosea that God will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring!! These are two wonderful word pictures.... the sun rising in the morning filling the darkness with so much light...it's brilliant and amazing... it is full of hope and something new.... it fills your heart if you are awake and see the dawn. And spring rains...oh wow.... they pour down... and fill the ground overflowing...the cause new things to grow beautiful and healthy.... they make make things grow that fill the earth with color, and happiness...even the birds sing the most beautiful songs after a spring rain.

When we seek after God, God responds to us! He responds in amazing ways...giving us hope and a newness of life... God pours out his blessings on us... He makes our life new and bright... when we press on and get to know God better and better we become like the birds in spring...we have songs to sing!!! Our part... and we always have a part... is to press on to know God. What will you do today to know God better? Do something.. at least one thing... so the darkness will fade away... so that God can pour out his blessings and make your life new...do at least one thing today to know God better!!!

Me holding your face in my hands...looking into your eyes... right into your eyes with great love!!... "Take time for God... God loves you so, so, so much!... God has so much to give you! Please promise me that you will not pass that up! Promise me!! God can do amazing thing!"

12.6.11

2011-12-06T08:03:00.000-08:00

2 John 1:5 I am writing to remind you, dear friends, that we should love one another. This is not a new commandment, but one we have heard from the beginning.

My Thoughts

We are told 11 times in the New Testament to "love one another:" Here John is reminding, reminding the people to "love one another." I wonder how often God tires of having to remind us to love one another. We are not told to love our those people that like us... or to love those people that love us.... we are told to love one another. If we are in a crowd and we are told to take hands with one another... everybody takes hands...not just friends, or family but everybody. We are called to love, even the unlovable probably especially the unlovable. Sometimes this can be really hard... but the verses never say "If it is easy, love one another," they just instruct us to love.

I was in line yesterday at Hobby Lobby (imagine that, me at Hobby Lobby), a lady that was about to get in line let me go first, I was then next to an old friend that I rarely see..so I got a chance to hug her!...then the lady behind me didn't have a coupon...I shared so she could get a discount. It was an amazing, most pleasant experience! We all had a moment of loving one another. It all started with that dear lady taking a moment to be loving, by letting me go first. The day before I had been at Wal-Mart where nobody even spoke to each other, me included. I had not done my part in spreading love when I was at Wal-Mart. What if I had been the one to make the first move then... we might have had another good moment in the check-out line. But I had not taken the moment, nobody had, to share love.

We are all rushing about trying to get things done... we even make life hard by deciding to put so much into our days.... We make work for ourselves where there is none. We go about being busy, busy, busy... Then we can get through a whole day and stop and realize we have not taken the time to love anybody. Imagine what just a day would be like if we all set out to love each other...to treat each other with love, everywhere we went...and then all those people had set out to do the same. Love has the ability to change everything. That power starts with a single person doing what God commanded us to do... will you be that person in your world? I hope to be that person in mine!

12.5.11

2011-12-05T06:47:00.000-08:00

1 John 5:14-15 And we are confident that he hears us, whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our request, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.

My Thoughts

I love this!!!...Love, Love, Love this verse!!!...it is just so exciting!!... God answers our prayers when we ask for things that are good for us or good for others. How exciting is that!! I am reminded of verses where God says he will pour out his blessings on us....Malachi 3:10 says and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it....Grace and peace is poured into our lives by our heavenly Father. (Eph. 1:2 Message). Poured out!!...I love that!! God did not say I will give you a little grace and peace...he did not say I will trickle down some blessings...he said I will open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessings that you will not have enough room for it!!... God has all kinds of blessings in store for us... and we can even request what we want...if it is a request that pleases God we will get it! Wow how lucky are we!!

12.4.11

2011-12-04T13:39:00.000-08:00

1 John 4:4 But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.

My Thoughts

We have to deal with the things that the devil puts in the world all the time... the attitudes he plants in peoples heads.... the unkindness he puts in the world...the anger, oh the anger. What we have to remember that the Spirit that God puts in us is so much greater that the spirit of the devil which abound on this earth! When faced with dishonesty, unkindness, gossip, hatefulness.... we don't have to act like the world... we can act like God intended for us to act...we can act with love.... Even if another person does not accept that spirit of love that we draw upon, we can at least walk away feeling good about ourselves. We can feel good because we choose love, we chose to listen to the Holy Spirit inside us... we chose not just to act like children of God, but to react like children of God. The thing we must remember when we are faced with a situation where we want to lash out is... we do have the Holy Spirit to guide us...and to give us strength to do the right thing, even when it is the hard thing. We are never, ever alone when we stand up to the evil around us... God is always there, with his grace, equipping us with the things we will need to fight the good fight!! The world is not bigger that the Creator of the World...when we have God on our side all things are possible!!

12.3.11

2011-12-03T08:21:00.000-08:00

1 John 3:16-17 We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but does shows no compassion -- how can God's love be in that person?

My Thoughts

I read once in a Dave Ramsey book that if all Christians tithed their 10% there were be no need for welfare....that Churches would be able to take care of all the poor in America. What an interesting fact!

When I was a little girl, in the 60's mid size houses were much smaller than "mid-size" houses are today. It was not unusual for kids to share bedrooms. Yet as America grows and prospers and what the middle class has, becomes more and more... and the divide between the have and the have nots seems to widen. The more electronic communication we have the more we are able to ignore the world around us. The more selfish we are able to become.

Yet we are called to have compassion...we are called to take care of one another... it ask us here how can God be in a person that shows no compassion for people in need? Luke 12:48 tells us From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. God gives to us so that we can give to others... God gave to America because America loved God and did what he ask. If we want to grow we need to have compassion...we need to let go of what God has given us and help others. We need to trust God that when we do what He ask us to do He will always take care of our needs. Luke 6:18 says Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” The tighter we hold on to, or the more we spend on ourselves to the point to having no money to hold on to... the less we will have in the long run.

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed over greed.... America can be destroyed over greed. As Christians we need to step up and show compassion... not ask questions deciding if this person or that person deserves our help... we are to reach out and help those in need... God takes care of the rest... God takes care of us if we have compassion in our heart...compassion is evidence that God lives there.

When we stand before God I think one of the questions that God will ask is "Did you have compassion?" I want to be able to answer "yes." The more I know God the more my compassion grows.... but I still have so much to learn...and so much to grow... I want to get to the point where I never say to myself, "but, if I give I can buy me _____________." After all Jesus gave up his life... his life for me.... surely I can give up "toys" so a family can eat.

12.2.2

2011-12-02T07:36:00.000-08:00

Psalms 121:5-6 The Lord himself watches over you! The Lord stand beside you as your protective shade. The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon at night.

My Thoughts

I could relate to this verse.... I have Lupus, and the sun is really toxic to Lupus patients.... If I get in the sun for any period of time I am exhausted, completely, utterly exhausted. Occasionally something comes up that I just want to do bad enough to weather the sun... so I suit up in my sunscreen and my long sleeves and go off to a craft fair, enjoy myself for a couple of hours...then end up in bed for the rest of that day and a couple of days after..... If I was an outside person I would be really in trouble... those Lupus patients often end up with really painful skin rashes. My daughter and son-in-law lived in Memphis for a while ...we would take the 5 hour trip there and back once a month...I would sit in the back where the windows were tinted...and still I would need rest for the whole next week.

These facts got me to thinking about the Lord being a protective shade...how huge that is.... God himself fills me with joy... joy gives us energy... joy actually protects us from being exhausted. God gives us his grace to help us accomplish anything we can not do on our own.... that protects us by making me able even when I think I can't .. We have God's word as armor against what the devil tells us. When we speak God's word out loud it is stronger than anything the devil tries to bring against us. God never sleeps (verse 4) he is ALWAYS, ALWAYS watching over us and protecting us.

I picture like this.... God holding a huge, huge umbrella.... we always have the choice to stand next to God and be protected from the sun... He is there saying come and stand with me...I love you and want with all my heart to keep you safe.... our part, and we always have a part, is to choose to stand in God's protection.

I am constantly re-amazed by how much God loves us...how much he loves me...how much he loves you!! The more I learn about God's love the more I love God back...the more joy I feel... the more faith I have! It just makes me happy!!

12.1.11

2011-12-01T06:33:00.000-08:00

1 John 2:5 But those who obey God's word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives like Jesus did.

My Thoughts

I remember that campain, we all do "What would Jesus do?" It was a passing "fad." How sad that it was a passing fad... it was a brilliant idea... if only it had worked. I remember that it did make me ask myself quite a few times "What would Jesus do?" I just didn't ask myself enough times. I think it is because even though I knew it was the right, good thing...I did't really know what Jesus would do... I had not taken time to really, truly know. What I am learning, as I take time to read my Bible each day, is that the more I know God the more I want to know God.... the more I read what Jesus taught the more I know how to be more like Jesus... I am learning that growing is a process... and that God sees that I am trying... I am becoming a little more like Jesus each day... I have forever to go!!!... I am only a tee nincy bit into my journey...but I am making progress!! The Bible is always talking about planting the seed and it growing.... for that seed to grow it takes lots of tending to!!..Lots... weed pulling, watering, feterlizer... a constant watch for things that attack the garden.... God puts into us the Holy Spirit... the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5: 22-23). All those things are there... ours for the taking.... we just have to make sure to nourish them with God's word, and with prayer. When we see these things begin show in our lives we can know that we are growing... God knows that we need time to grow into the person he intended for us to be.... the plants in the garden start growning soon after they are planted...you may not see it for a while...but the growing is happening deep underground... then you see the sprouts of progress.... the plants in the garden grow until their death... it is an ongoing, lifetime thing... that garden needs tending until the farmer is ready to harvest the plant. We need to fill our mind and our heart with God's word so that when the Holy Spirit speeks inside us, guiding us we recognize His voice...so that we can show God just how much we do love him... this for us is a lifetime process.... the weeds, the enemy can always get in if we are tending to our garden... The amazing thing is the more we take time to know God the more time we make to know God. When this begins to happen in our lives, we will never be the same again!!

I challange you to make a commitment to yourself and to God to take the time to read and to learn and to grow. God's word never returns void (Isaiah 55:11). God has a way of making our time work for us when we make time for him. We all want our lives to be better! Taking time for God is a sure way to change your world. It changed my world in amazing ways!!...Amazing ways!!! I will never be the same. If I could sit across from you right now I would take your face in my hand and say "God loves you, YOU so much! If you never learn anything else from me hear this.... God loves you! He made you, he is proud of you, he thinks you are amazing...he has so much joy and love to pour out on you... it will be overflowing!" ..then I would put a Bible in your hand and say, "Read this every day, never stop! It will change your life! I promise it will!"

11.30.11

2011-11-30T07:09:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 119:164 I will praise you seven times a day because all your regulations are just.

My Thoughts

This really struck me... I like it!! As much as I talk to God through out the day I am not so sure that I talk to him seven times a day.... I figured it up... I would need to do it when I wake up at 7, then 9:30, 12. 2:30, 5, 7:30 and when I go to be around 10... that would start my day with God...and keep me refreshed, reminded ... keep me in good standing... I could love over the last couple of hours and even remember if I had sinned.... it would be constantly drawing God near to me. I would always be setting the reset button. I love this idea!!...this plan... with all our modern technology it is easy too... I will set my cell phone to go off with a Bible Verse for the week... every two and a half hours! Then seven times a day I will read my Bible verse, ask forgiveness...and praise God... then the people in my path I need to pray for will be fresh on my mind too. I am excited!! I would love it if you would do this with me!!

Imagine how a life would have to change that stopped to praise God seven times a day!! Imagine how a family would change!!...Imagine how a nation would change!!...

11.29.11

2011-11-29T06:57:00.000-08:00

Psalms 119:133 Guide my steps by your word, so I will not be overcome by evil.

My Thoughts

At first I think of this verse and think about how I need to know God word so that I know how to do good... to be good... so that I can be strong enough to make the right choices, even when the world tells me to do something different. And God's word so does that for me... it helps me in this way every day! I get amazed daily at how much it has helped me.

The more I read and learn God's word the more I see this verse in another way... when evil is all around me... when the devil is trying to trip me up by putting things in my way and making my day hard.... when I have God's word hidden in my heart not only does it help me make right choices... it also helps me have joy! and peace! in the mist of turmoil. That, my friend, is the most amazing feeling of all!! It makes me think of the story when Jesus and the disciples were in the boat...and the sea was raging... the boat was being toss all about.. a little boat... a big, big sea..... Jesus was asleep in the boat, ASLEEP in the middle of the storm... why? Jesus knew that God was in control...and that God was going to take care of him!! Now, in situations where I use to fall completely apart...and I could so fall completely apart.... I am held together by God's word... in the mist of bad situation I now find myself with a faint smile on my face because, in my heart I know that God is going to take care of my day....I know that God gives me the gift of a new day tomorrow... I know that I don't need control, God is in control...and I begin to pray. I give my situation, my day to God...when I don't know what to say, or what to ask...I praise God, I just praise him...and that little smile on my face just gets bigger.

God's word is a bit like a security blanket... you have this yarn, which is the Bible...and you have yourself which is a loom, or knitting needles or a crochet hook... each are a bit useless apart... but when they are put together they create beautiful and strong security blanket!! As you read God's word a stitch forms...and another and another... the more you read the bigger the blanket grows...the warmer it gets...the more it swallows you up.... when the blanket is little...still tiny it can come unraveled quickly...but if you keep adding stitches and stitches and stitches your security blanket gets bigger and bigger and stronger and stronger so even on a bad day...when you become a bit unraveled...there is still lots of blanket there to keep you warm and safe... as you call on God's word that has been placed in your heart you can knit your blanket back together right where you are... the string you have already woven into your blanket is always there with you... the more time you spend in God's word the more stitches and string that are in your blanket..the safer and warmer you are... the best part is as your blanket gets larger, and larger it can be shared, wrapped around others. We have to make the effort to stitch the blanket together!! When we do God's keeps us safe and warm!

11.18.11

2011-11-28T07:08:00.000-08:00

2 Peter 22:19b For you are a slave to whatever controls you.

My Thoughts

Wow! Wow! What powerful words! None of us like to be a slave to anything... we as Americans are especially proud of our freedom. Yet so many of us walk around in bondage. When you first read this you can think about the alcoholic or the drug addict.... they are a slave to the next drink or the next hit... and if you don't do those things you feel like everything is OK in your life you after all are not a slave. But the truth is we have probable all been a slave to something at one time or other. We are a slave to anything that interrupts our lives to the point it is in our thoughts when we need or want to think about something else...anything that we wake up and have to do.... anything that we plan our lives around.

Some of us are a slave to money.... we have let money control us instead of controlling our money..... once we let our bills get out of hand because we couldn't control our spending we become slaves to our money... it is actually controlling us. Some of us are slaves to football.... yes, football.... we are so wrapped up in football that we can't miss a game... I have even heard of dads missing the birth of their child because of a football game... when we let something like football get so important that it actually controls our emotions ... we have become a slave to football. Some of us are a slave to Facebook... we have to check in when we wake up...and before we go to bed...and time in between to make sure we are connected to the world. Some of us are slaves to Farm-ville, Cafe World or any other of those type of games... I actually called somebody from the hospital once to harvest my plants... Some people are a slave to work... the world has give them a label, work-a-holics...when work is all you can think about even when you are at home with your family.... something needs to change. Some of us are a slave to reading or video games... some of us have become a slave to stuff...to the point it has taken over our houses... the label to that is hording. Some of us are a slave to Grey's Anatomy or Criminal minds.... Some of us are a slave to worry, worry of any kind.... Anything that gets into our thoughts so much that it controls what we do and think...that it actually controls our emotions, we have become slaves to. When something gets in the way of what we need to do...when something gets in the way of our ability to hear others when they talk... when something takes over our emotions.... when something takes over our ability to be in control we have become a slave to it. We have given up our freedom that we cherish so much.

I think this verse is warning us to be aware of the things that control our lives... to be aware of the things that get into our heads so much that we can't keep our mind on God.. that we can't stay focused on the needs or others... and we are really in trouble when something effects us so much that we choose it over taking care of our own basic needs.... I think three signs of being controlled by something is 1. it controls our emotions... 2. we find ourselves doing something all the time, to the point of neglecting ourselves or others... 3. we are avoiding it... (money problems, house work). When we are a slave to something, anything we can't "let go, and let God." We need to be disciplined enough to be free, free to be the person God wants us to be. We need to be aware enough of our lives and what is going on in our life to recognize the signs of being controlled... then we need to step up to the devil himself and say I will not be a slave to anything you put in my path.... I am a child of the most high God and I will be free to be what He would have me be.

I am a slave to a few things... it is a bit hard to be honest with myself about this...but I am a slave, a bit to Facebook... a bit to TV.... OK, Ok I am a bit of a slave to knitting and crochet.... I need to take my life back in these areas so that I can be free to be what God wants me to be. What are you a slave to?

11.27.11

2011-11-27T07:16:00.000-08:00

2 Peter 1:2 May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.

My Thoughts

I have heard God's grace defined as God's ability in us to accomplish what we could not do on our own. I love that definition of God's grace... and peace... we all know that you can not put a price on peace. Master Card loves to define peace as having a moment doing something we can't afford without credit. Peace is is so much bigger than that!! Peace is that amazing feeling of everything in life being OK, taken care of...everything being right... feeling right with yourself, the people around you... feeling right with God.

The bible tells us more than once to seek knowledge... it tells us that if we seek knowledge that knowledge will be given to us... our part, we always have a part, is seeking after knowledge in God and in Jesus our Lord... if we seek...if we take time to learn about God, God will give us more grace and more peace and more grace and more peace... and more grace and more peace. We can never learn enough. But, to get that grace and peace we have to do our part.

I encourage you with all my being to pick up your Bible and start reading it for yourself... it changes your life. I know that you can't put a price on peace because I use to never be peaceful...but as I have spent time studying God's word the peace inside me has grown by leaps and bounds.. the strength of God has made me able to do things I could not do two years ago.... I can trace this all back to picking up my Bible and spending time every morning with God... God's word is amazing it will change your world. I know it is changing my daily... I can't wait to learn more, to grow more... I can't wait to find out what it feels like to have more peace in my life. God is amazing!

11.26.11

2011-11-26T07:12:00.000-08:00

1 Peter 4:8 Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.

My Thoughts

I love this!!... Love covers a multitude of sins!! We need to love each other.... do things for each other in love! I read this and got this picture of God on judgment day... saying "My dear son, I saw you cheat, I saw you lie, I saw steal." The sinner with his head held down trembling and afraid. Then I pictured God taking that sinners shamed face in his hands.... pulling it up so that God could look in his eyes and God saying "But, my son you loved your fellow man... you fed your neighbor, you were kind to strangers in the street, you encouraged people.. YOU loved people! Welcome to my home."

1 Corinthians 13:13 says that three things will last forever faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love. In Mark 12:30-31 Jesus tells us And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” We are called to love... love does amazing things! Love changes everything.... when love is given to babies that have been neglected they begin to thrive. People that live alone that have pets to love and to love them live longer than people that live alone without a pet. Love is a powerful, powerful thing... love even covers a multitude of sins.

We we spend time loving only ourselves love stops... it does not even grow... 1 x 1 only equals one... but when we love others... and they love others.... love grows expediently. What if love covers sins expediently? The wonderful thing about love is that love grows out in all directions... when we send love out it comes back. We are called to love... who will you show love to today?

11.25.11

2011-11-25T05:42:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 28:14 Blessed are those who fear to do wrong, but the stubborn are headed for serious trouble.

My Thoughts

I love this!!...Love, love, love it!! "Blessed are those who FEAR to do wrong"... it does not say blessed are those who are perfect, who never ever mess up! It says "Blessed are those who FEAR to do wrong." To me that says God blesses you if you are trying, he knows it is hard...and that old habits die hard...but if you are trying...and you so want to do what is right...and you don't want to do what is wrong, God sees that and he will bless you!! It just makes my heart happy.... It also says on but woe to you if you have that "I know this is wrong but, I am doing it anyway!!" attitude..... been there...I have quit doing that!!!

The more I know God and try... the better my life gets! This verse tells me why it is getting better, and better and better. Does the devil tempt me to do wrong...yes!!...Do I sometimes entertain those temptations? Yes I do... but then I remember what God has told me...the more I learn what God says the more ammunition I have to fight off those temptations to do wrong, to act wrong... to react wrong. When the devil tempts me to do bad and I stop and say no this is not what God would want... God smiles down on me!... He blesses my day... God is proud... God notices that I am trying. I may even do the wrong thing trying to do right...but God knows when I was doing my best to make the right decision!!

I love that God loves us so much that he blesses us when we try!! It is so important to learn what our blessings are... how all that is good comes from God... the more we are aware of our blessings the more we are aware of God's love... the more we are aware of just how much God loves us the more we want to do good... then the more we want to do good the more blessings we get... when we get totally aware of God and all his goodness life just gets better and better and better!!

The next time the devil tempt you to do bad, and he will, remember that God knows when you are trying... never give up. Don't ever believe the devils lies, that trying doesn't work... God always knows when we try!

11.24.11

2011-11-24T07:55:00.000-08:00

1 Peter 2:22-23 He (Jesus) never sinned, nor ever deceived anyone. He did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly.

My Thoughts

I think when we read these verses we like to think of big things...I know I do... we think of people who what to fight back with fist...or TV's versions of revenge when somebody gets somebody back by ruining their business... or making sure they loose their job... those huge things that most "normal" people never do. It says here that Jesus never retaliated, or even threaten revenge. Never, ever even in the small things. I think we all at least threaten revenge in some form or fashion... oh don't say "I don't" until you think about those little thoughts we all have... I had to stop and think of the little thoughts... you know the ones... we try to speak to somebody in the store and feel ignored... and we think "Well I just won't speak to them next time." We try to be nice to the checkout person... they talk to each other and don't even notice us... our thought is "Well, see if I am nice again." We fix a plate for our spouse and take it to them and they don't even seems to notice so next time we just leave it out the counter. We do something for a co-worker and when we need help they don't seem to notice, we think "See if I help him out ever again." God expects us to always show love, always be helpful, to turn the other cheek no matter what anybody does to us... no matter what anybody says to us, no matter how much we are not noticed... we are still called to do the "right" thing. Jesus didn't even threaten revenge must less act on it.

This verse goes on to say Jesus left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly. The truth is we often don't know why somebody doesn't speak to us.. or why a co-worker didn't help us... or why our spouse didn't notice that we went to trouble on their behalf... we are not there in their head... we have not been a part of their day... When we leave our "injustices" to God, God can judge fairly because he knows all... God knows if we have really been slighted or if the other person just has so much going on that they couldn't even muster the energy to speak. God knows... and if we we have truly treated unfairly God will give us double for our trouble, if we are good and kind, if we choose to do the right thing.. if we will leave it up to God.

I wonder how much we miss out on... how many times we could have received double for our trouble if we had left every insult, every injustice we have ever felt in the hands of God. Instead we take these things on ourselves... and we in return we are one of the people handing out insults and injustices ourselves.

We are called to be like Jesus... to do good even if nobody around us is being good... we are called to be kind... we are called to love...when we do what God ask... he always takes care of the rest, God even gives us double for our trouble if we leave it in his hands.

11.23.11

2011-11-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

Psalms 119:45 I will walk in freedom, for I have devoted myself to your commandments.

My Thoughts

Some people might say "Freedom, commandments in the same sentence, that just doesn't make sense." Today when I read this I got this wonderful clear picture of freedom, with commandments. I saw my children as toddles...sweet babies free to do anything as I watched over them... they were totally free in spirit. in ability...they were free to have fun, be happy, grow and learn... they could do anything but hurt themselves or each other. That is what God tells us... play, grow, be happy... be good to each other... have fun...I will supply everything you need...I am right here watching over you... ready to help when you need help...right by your side... take my hand if you need it...while you play and grow I will be here providing your every need...I will feed you and make sure you are warm and dry...I will clothe you... just don't hurt yourself or the others around you. I love you!! I have plenty of hugs and will be happy to shower you with them... now go play and and grow and learn.... and have fun doing it!!

I love when I get these pictures of God! They make me smile!!

11.22.11

2011-11-22T07:20:00.000-08:00

Psalms 119:30 I have chosen to be faithful; I have determined to live by your regulations.

My Thoughts

Faithfulness is a choice... we chose to be faithful... it is not something we can or can't do...it is a choice we make.... we have to be determined. So often we think and say I can't ...but when we get determined to do something we are able. Our words are so important to our actions... when we tell ourselves "I can"... when we say to ourselves "I choose to".... when we tell ourselves "I am determined' our lives begin to change. We have to make the choice to spend time with God... we have to make the choice to make time for God... we have to determine we are going to spend time reading God's word. A better life is always in our reach if we determine to reach out to God.

11.21.11

2011-11-21T07:37:00.000-08:00

Psalms 119:11 I have hidden your words in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

My Thoughts
God's words have to be a part of our heart and soul! It is not enough that they are not a part of our head... they have to drop down into our heart. The devil loves to get into our minds... when God's word is only in our minds the devil can take those words and twist them and turn them... he can make us question them...but once they become a part of our heart they are save, they become an actual part of us. The thing is we have to do our part and learn God's word before we can make it a part of our heart. Psalms 1:2 says they delight in the law of the Lord meditating on it day and night. We need to learn to delight in God's word... to enjoy it, to think on it... we need to make sure that we understand it...that way it does become a part of our heart and soul.

So many decisions we make have to be made in an instant... So often we don't have time to think about what is the right thing or the wrong thing to do... if we have put God word in our heart.. if we have made sure that God's word is a part of us... if we have truly hidden it deep inside of us those decisions will be covered by what God has taught us.

All that is good comes from God...God's word will never steer us in the wrong direction. When we know God's word we can never confuse what the Holy Spirit is telling us with what the devil is trying to deceive us with. God's word is our sword against evil...it is our instruction on how to be good. God's word will keep us from sin. God's word, when hidden in our heart, will change our lives in amazing ways...and when it does God will smile down on us pouring out his blessings on our lives.

11.20.11

2011-11-20T06:36:00.000-08:00

James 4:11-12 Don't speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God's law. But your job is to obey the law, not judge whether it applies to you. God alone who gave the law, is the judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?

My Thoughts

This made me think of how often we judge people when we have learned how to do something... or stopped doing something... We wonder why people don't do, whatever it is we have learned to do.... after all it is easy we are doing it. Sometimes it is out of our desire for people to experience what we have experienced from doing better.

We have all met the smoker that doesn't smoke anymore who is the biggest critic of those who won't quit. He is often the biggest critic because he knows it can be done. People that manage their money, think everybody could and should manage their money. People that are really good at cleaning their house think it is easy...everybody should be doing it. We all tend to do it I think. Even in the desire to see others do it better, be bette,r we are actually judging them. Sometimes we do it because we feel better about ourselves if we are doing something, anything, better than somebody else.

I think this is where mercy comes in... showing mercy to people that have not learned what we have learned... I know I sure want mercy from people that do life better than me... I still have so much to learn. I can't learn it from people who judge me, I can only learn to do it better from people that are willing to help me do better. We learn so much from our families.... but often are limited to the life lessons our own family learned before us.... I have always loved that saying "Don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in their shoes." My favorite is the Indian version "Don't judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasin's." That would be two months...but even two months is not enough to really know where someone else has come from. God tells us not to judge at all. When we see people in need we are called to have mercy, we are called to help.

We don't really know if a person could or could not do better...we have not lived their lives... only God knows that... God knows where we have come from, where we are going. God knows when they are doing the best they can do. I am coming to understand that we have the knowledge that somebody could do better so that we can do our best step in and help them do better... but, so often, as humans we tend to use that knowledge as a basis of judgment.

Maya Angelo says "When we know better we do better." I believe for most of us that is true. Sometimes is seems somebody should "know better" when we are on the outside looking in... but we have no idea how they arrived at the decisions they are making. Sometime people finally know better...they have just gotten themselves in such a state that they don't know where to start to make life better. Imagine how many of us could do better with a helping hand of mercy. The world would surly be a better place of we would each use our knowledge to reach out and help eachother.

I hope that I am learning from what God is teaching me...that the next time I notice what somebody isn't doing "right" that I reach out to help, to encourage.... I hope that anytime I am tempted to judge I use that as a reminder that I should be doing something to make the world a better place.

11.19.11

2011-11-19T08:01:00.000-08:00

James 3:17 But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere.

My Thoughts

God's wisdom is pure... pure!.. If we choose to do what God tells us to do we can't go wrong. It may not be easy, but it is never wrong. We are told to love peace... embrace it, promote it.... be gentle with others to have it... give in if we need to for the sake of peace. This can be hard... we so often want to to prove our point... to make sure that somebody sees our side of things... often we just want things our way for a change. We don't want to give in, to yield to others. We so often give up peace to be right, to get our way. If we could stop for a minute when we get lost in our selfishness and remember to do what is right ... God will take care of the rest in His time... God will bless us, we will get what we need when we tend to the needs of others... when we make peace. God's blessings are so much bigger than any blessing man could give us.

Here we are also told to be full of mercy and good deeds. One definition of mercy is an act of kindness, compassion, or favor...we are to show no favoritism... so we are to be kind and compassionate to all people..not just the people that are kind to us...not just the people we like... the people we like least often need our kindness and compassion the most.

Any kindness we show... and compassion we show...anything we do for others comes from God.. it is a gift from God...anything somebody does for us is a gift from God... When I put it in my head that way it makes me understand that when I withhold kindness from someone for any reason I am blocking God's gift to them. I should never stand in the way of someone receiving anything that comes from God..and everytime I choose not to do a kind thing because I am not in the right mood or I just don't "feel" good...I am standing in the way of something that comes straight from heaven. When I get in in my head this way... I feel a bit more understanding drop down into my soul... I don't every want to stand in the way of anybody receiving anything that God has in store for them. That is surely a sin.

11.18.11

2011-11-18T06:36:00.000-08:00

James 2:17 So you see, faith by itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.

My Thoughts

To be honest I had to really think about this verse... it got me in my gut... made me a little afraid if you want to know the truth. I spent lots of time reading how Paul told the believers that your good works would not get you into heaven... it is by grace that we are saved. We could never be "good" enough without God's grace. Then I read this verse and it tells me that unless my faith produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. My heart started pounding and I started to feel afraid.

Then God reminded me of this verse... Philippians 2:13 says For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. God can not do that if I walk down the isle of the Church and ask Jesus in my heart then go about being the same person. It is my job to seek after God, it is my job to learn all I can about what God has planned for my life... I have to make an effort to have a relationship with God... when I make that effort God helps me grow. Philippians 2:13 says that God is working in me.... that means to me that it takes a while to get where I need to be. God gives me his grace to get better and better at doing what pleases him. God wants to look down and see that I am growing and learning. It is by faith we are saved.... by believing what God tells us... to believe what God tells us we have to know what God has told us. True faith in God will change us it will grow us into the people we need to be.

I asked Jesus in my heat when I was nine. When I was 47 I picked up my Bible and started getting to know God. All the years in between... I tried to be a good person.... I wanted to go to heaven, who doesn't? I went to church on and off.... I said I had faith. I thought I had faith. When I started seeking after God, truly seeking after God... I wanted more!! Was it slow at first? Yes it was... I am still growing and growing...but each day God puts a new desire in my heart and as I seek after that new desire God gives me the strength to do what he puts in my heart to do. The more I know God's promises for my life the more faith I have that God is taking care of me. The more faith I have that I can do what God sets in front of me to do... not because I am capable...but because I am learning to call on God's grace to make me strong enough.

I worked with a man once... oh he talked about loving God... he talked of all the good things he was going to do... all the good works we were going to do for the community... when I listened to him I was so impressed with how much he "loved" God. Then I was around him, he mistreated his employees, he stole from the company, not just stuff, but time and money. His "faith" did not produce good works...it just helped him make a good first impression.

The more I know God the more my life is changing... so much of me has changed. My mouth is better! I am kinder! I am less and less and less afraid! I recognize my sins much more quickly now and can actually stop myself in the middle of one! I am more careful about what goes in body through my eyes and ears! God is changing me little bits at a time... carving away the bad... sanding away the rough edges... We are God's life's work.... He will work on us for our whole lifetime... giving us new desires and new strengths... giving us his grace to do what he calls us to do. As Joyce Meyer says "I am not where I want to be, but thank God, I am not where I use to be." God is always working within me changing me...give me the desire and the power to do what pleases Him.

Now I read what James is saying and I believe James is telling us be careful not to have "faith" for appearances sake... God sees in our hearts... true faith in God makes us want to seek after him. True faith realizes the huge sacrifice that Jesus made so that we could be forgiven of our sins. True faith is about relationships not just words. James is saying to us if the desires of your heart are not changing, if you don't find yourself doing good, and being better, STOP and rethink, reassess your relationship with God. Don't fool yourselves into believing that you believe. Make sure that you see the fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) growing inside of you so that you know, that you know, that you know, that you are truly a child of God. James is telling us if we don't see those things we are in danger of having fooled ourselves into believing we have a relationship with God.

Will works save us? No, only Jesus could save us. But true faith will make us want to do good works it will make us want us to be better people....Good works out of love and kindness are what begins to grow from forth from us when God is working in our lives.

11.17.11

2011-11-17T08:33:00.000-08:00

James 1:16-17 So don't be mislead, my dear brothers and sisters. What ever is good and perfect comes down to us form God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or cast shifting shadows.

My Thoughts

I loved this verse ... I got such a clear picture in my head... I have this portable photo studio for taking pictures of the things I make.. you put lights on each side and at the top... and if you do it right you get a perfect picture of color... no shadows make anything look skewed. You see the item just as it is. When I try to take a picture without that box and those lights the color is never what it actually is and the shape of something can actually look different than what it actually is. You can even take the light and put it in different angles and create a whole different effect tricking the mind.

God always sheds his bright and perfect light on what he gives us...there is nothing left out... you can see what you are getting... there is no tricks in the lighting... when God wants to give us something we know exactly what we are getting.

The devil puts things in the shadows... he uses trick lighting to make things look so much better than they are...he highlights the parts that look good and he hides the parts that are bad.... he makes it where you can not see the consequences of your choices or your actions. He hide the bad parts in the shadows.

God has perfect lighting... perfect love. He tells us all the time if you do this, this will happen. If you do that, this will happen. God leaves nothing out. There are no shadows, there is no deceptive lighting. God tells us.. when you do good.. I will give you good in return. If you turn from me I can't protect you. God tells us how it it is will everything, every part brought to light. God is light.

God love us and He will never hide the truth from us, ever. Our part... and we always have a part .. is to get to know God... to read his word and lean his promises. If we do that the devil can't trick us with his shadows we will know the difference.

11.16.11

2011-11-16T09:12:00.000-08:00

Hebrews 13:15 Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise a to God, proclaiming our allegiance to his name.

My Thoughts

Verse 11 tells us "Under the old system, the high priest brought the blood of animals into the Holy Place as a sacrifice for sin and the bodies of the animals were burned outside the camp." Every time I read this I think of how the people had to raise a perfect animal...one with no blemishes. It had to be a first born male animal.. perfect in every way. To keep this animal perfect it had to be watched over continually... special care had to be taken with this animal, during its life an during its death. Then this perfect animal was given to God for the sins of the people. This took so much time and energy, so much effort, so much thought. Since Jesus died for out sins our sacrifice is praise to God. Simply praise to God! We can do that as we go about our day. Yet we often fail to even acknowledge God in our day at all much less offer praise. How sad this must make God, that he gave his perfect son, one without any blemish of sin, that walked on this earth for us. He gave his one and only son as a sacrifice for us and we forget to send up praise to Him. We forget to set apart time for God. We think we are too busy, that we don't have time. We need to make time for God. We need to stop and thank God for all that we have. We need to treat what we have as a gift, not as a right. The money we have in our pockets, or our bank accounts was given to us by God for us to use wisely! Our ability to make that money in our pockets was given to us by God. We need to be mindful of the fact that it is a gift from God so that we can do so much for ourselves and for others and we need to thank God for the gifts that brings into our lives. We need to be in constant praise and in constant state of thankfulness.

If we were to strive to be thankful always, always mindful of all that we have as being a gift... our chores would not seem so much like chores. I need so to learn to do this. Thank you God for these dishes, for the food that was ate on these dishes! Thank you God for this dishwasher that makes my day so much easier. Thank you God for these dirty clothes..this huge pile I have means that I have more than enough and you gave them to me, to adorn me.. so that I can feel pretty, be warm. Thank you God for this power bill, it means that I have been cool in the summer and warm in the winter.. it ran my dishwasher, and my washing machine and dryer... my hot water heater... this wonderful thing called power that you created for us makes my days so much easier... you love me so much God that you make my days so, so, so much easier then they could be... you give me time in my day for enjoyment!! Thank you God for that. Our list should go on and on and on!! And on and on and on!!!

Imagine how happy it would make God if we acknowledged Him in all that we do and in all that we have each day. Imagine how much more we would appreciate what we have if we would stop and think of each thing as a gift.Our minds are filled with constant thoughts as we go about our days anyway! Why not stop the randomness of our thoughts and fill those places with praise and thankfulness. Imagine how much more God would want to give us if we stopped to be thankful for all that he has given us!!! Imagine how our friends would feel if we said each time that we saw them... God thank you so much for this dear friend of mine. Imagine how much our hearts would grown... and our attitudes would change if we lived in a constant state of praise!

Just taking these minutes to think of all that I have in this way has made me happier! So much more aware of my wonderful God who has given me so much... What allllllllllll are you thankful for today? Tell God how great He is for giving you so much!!

11.15.11

2011-11-15T06:43:00.000-08:00

Hebrews 12:15 Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.

My Thoughts

Oh wow... our bitterness can corrupt many!... When we are bitter we just don't act nice... we are unkind... often snapping at the people around us. Even if our bitterness is kept deep within and we think it is not effecting the people around us, it is. It keeps us from spreading love... it keeps us from being kind... if we keep bitterness inside of us we still go about treating people differently. Our bitterness can cause somebody else to be bitter against us..then somebody to be bitter against the person we made bitter...on the ripple effect of a day of bitterness could travel around the world long after we are over it!!... That is an enormous thing if you think about it.... just one day of bitterness could travel the world for years effecting thousands of people. ... I get treated badly at a store... so I snap at my husband... who is not so nice to somebody he comes in contact at work...they go home and snap at their family... who get up the next morning and are sour with somebody they come in contact with... his wife Mary calls her sister in West Virginia and gets off on a conversation of complaining about past things in their family...just because she is in a bad mood...one that started with me somehow (I don't even know Mary)...and the next thing you know Mary's sister is all fired up....and my bitterness in Alabama is spread all the way to West Virginia... she effects 10 people there.. who each effect 10 people in their lives... and before you know it somebody across the ocean is even effected ...and it all started with me being bitter just for a day!!

Just think how our love can change the world in the same way... somebody is having a bad day at work...we go through their line...we take time to smile... ask them about their day... we take a minute to care. They are smiling by the time we leave..they go home and are sweet to their family. They are sweet because somebody took time to care about them... their family wakes up the next day in a good mood..and they are sweet to the people around them... then Mary calls her sister in West Virgina again...in a good mood..they talk and reminisce about all the good things in their childhood......they hang up the phone after feeling all warm and fuzzy and loved... and the love in Alabama is spread all the way to West Virginia and before you know it across the ocean somewhere.

There are always things in our days that can grab us and take hold...that make us feel a bit bitter... overtake us... our best actions is praise... praising God that he is bigger than all that happens to us. When we praise God it draws Him near to us... God is love...all that love of God being so near to us will wash away all bitterness!!... It works every time I do it... sometimes I just forget. When we get busy praising God we are not wollering in the anger or pain somebody else has cause us...and we get wrapped in God's love... love is always healing!! God's love is the greatest healer!!

One way to look after others is to make sure that we don't let bitterness into our hearts and lives. We can work hard to be the person that spreads love. Simply being kind...showing love to others can have an effect that can travels the world... we never know where the effects of our kindness gets to... but God does! We can make a difference one kind word... one pat on the back... one smile at a time.

11.14.11

2011-11-14T05:46:00.000-08:00

Hebrews 12:12-13 So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fail be become strong.

My Thoughts

These verses say to me...even when it gets really hard to do good. Even when we are tired we need to keep our eyes on what is good... keep doing good. Even when everybody around us doing bad seems better off than us ...we need to stay on that straight path.... if we do we will not fail... we are growing! It may not feel like it but we will become strong! These verses are telling us God is watching us, He knows how hard life can be... He knows that in this world things can get really hard, that we can get really tired of doing good, that it can be really hard to love others sometimes. But if we keep at it ... it will all be worth it.... We will not fail, we will become strong with God. God will not overlook how hard it was for us, or how hard we tried... God will reward us in the end. We should never, ever give up on doing good.

11.12.11

2011-11-12T07:04:00.000-08:00

Hebrews 11:1-2 Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about the things we cannot see. Through their faith, in the in days of old earned a good reputation.

My Thoughts

This chapter goes on to tell us about how Able had faith, Enoch had faith, Noah had faith, Abraham had had faith, Sarah had faith. The faith of these people are why we even know about them today. A more modern version of great faith was Mother Teresa... a lady of faith was constantly taking care of people's needs one tiny need at a time... now she is know around the word.

When we have faith that God will do what He says he will do it makes it much easier to do what He tells us to do. The more we get to know God the great our faith becomes... the more we know God the more aware we become that the good things happening in our lives come straight from God. The more aware we become the stronger our faith becomes. When we have faith in God and do what he ask us to do, God will make sure that we earn a good reputation. Everybody may not like us...but everybody will know that we are a child of the most high God. Like us or not they will know that we choose God and we choose to make choices that honor God

We just can't go wrong by choosing God. God is so good. God loves us so much and would only choose good for our lives. Our lives and our reputations can only grow in goodness when we choose to have faith in all that God promises. When we have faith we don't have to know what tomorrow brings we get to just trust that whatever that might be God is on our side and will take care of us and our reputation.

11.11.11

2011-11-11T07:05:00.000-08:00

Hebrews 10:24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good work.

My Thoughts

This verse is so important... and sometimes it takes work... lots of work and thinking of how to put our words... it takes talking to God about what to say before we speak. So often we want to affirm some-body's feeling when they are upset so when they say something like "I think I just won't ever speak to them again." we will say "I don't blame you." or we often don't say a word because we don't want to be a part of a bad decision they are making.... But, we are called to motivate one another to acts of love and good work. We need to encourage forgiveness... and kindness. When ask we should not stay silent.... we should encourage people to do acts of love.... encourage people to do good work. We should ask questions to make people think about their actions. So often we don't want to step on peoples toes so we agree... just agree to what they say. But instead of agreeing with someone when we can clearly see they are about to make a bad decision...we need to motivate them to acts of love and good work. To do that we need to stop ourselves, talk to God, think about our words..then speak... words of love and and encouragement. In the long run, even if we step on a toe or two we will be loved and respected for helping somebody make a right choice. We too, will feel good about what we said.

11.10.11

2011-11-10T07:17:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 27:12 A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.

My Thoughts

Prudent is defined as wise or judicious in practical affairs; sagacious; discreet or circumspect; sober. 2.careful in providing for the future; provident. Being prudent is about being wise in our everyday lives. Being careful to provide for the future. Thinking ahead. God expects us to be prudent and take precautions... or we suffer the consequences. God's word is full of ways on how to be prudent...if we would only listen we would be prepared!! The easiest example of this if being careful with our money...being prudent with our money... to do that we must know how much we owe...set that aside... get our bills payed on times, so we won't have late fees and other charges...then be careful with the rest so that it goes far enough... So often people are suffering the consequences because they spend before they put back... blindly hoping that it will all work out. We are told here that we are to do our part to keep our lives straightened out or we will suffer the consequences.

God tells us to work hard, as if we were working for him (Colossians 3:23). When we do this it secures our jobs. God tells us not to be gossips or hang out with people that do (Proverbs 20:19). This keeps us out of so much drama and trouble. The Bible tells us to keep busy (Proverbs 20:13).

The Bible is full of instructions that help us foresee danger and be prepared. God expects us to do our part to learn how to stay our of trouble...if we don't we suffer the consequences.... we can choose to stay uneducated about how to do our lives... or we can choose to learn all God put down to help us... it is up to us. We can call on God to help us learn and remember and put into practice... but, God expects us to do the seeking after... and it is up to us to take precautions. Another words there is no excuse for being stupid about things, we have to do our part to be educated or we suffer for our inaction.

We can learn from our mistakes...we we find ourselves suffering the consequences we can ask ourselves where we went wrong, what did we do to cause what happened.. this is taking responsibility. We can examine it and find out what God would have us do...and next time instead of reacting stupid we can do better. We are to grow, and grow and grow .... Stupid will not excuse us.....wisdom and action are ours for the taking and when we make the effort God gives us the ability!!

11.9.11

2011-11-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

Hebrews 9:13-14 Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow could cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.

My Thoughts

Jesus' blood makes us clean inside and out... all good again... completely forgiven... so forgiven that we are not to walk around with a guilty conscience!!..It says here "Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God." We go to God ask forgiveness and the blood that Jesus shed cleans our sins away!! God forgets them!! We should too!... Right here in Hebrews it tells us that Jesus will purify even our conscience... that means that we don't have to walk around feeling guilty once we have ask for forgiveness... when we get this, truly get this...we are more able to go to God in worship...we are better able to praise God, to give God all the glory he deserves. Jesus made it so we can stand blameless before God. How exciting is that.

I have shared this story before.. One day after my mom died, I was folding clothes... crying wishing I had done more... feeling guilty, so guilty. I crying and talking to God... God said to me deep in my soul....I knew it was God, he told me "Jeannie, if you waste time worrying about the person you didn't know how to be, you can't become the person you are meant to be." God was telling me... don't walk around feeling guilty... just do better.... don't let what you didn't know how to do make you so stressed and upset that you can't go about doing what I ask you to do now. God pretty much told me not to feel guilty... but to keep growing... I didn't have to feel guilty because the blood of Jesus purified even my conscience.

See God know!... he knows our thoughts... he knows how we hurt...he know that we grow and get better and being good children of God... God gives us a way to be right with him again.... and if we are right with God, the perfect, sinless, all knowing, full of goodness God, we can be right with ourselves! We can just say out loud to the devil, "I am right with God through the blood of Jesus... I cast you out of my conscience, Jesus even made that pure!!" Then we can move forward and work at being all that God wants us to be!! We are so blessed to belong to a God that loves us so much!!

11.8.11

2011-11-08T07:04:00.000-08:00

Ezekiel 18:31-32 “Therefore, I will judge each of you, O people of Israel, according to your actions, says the Sovereign Lord. Repent, and turn from your sins. Don’t let them destroy you! Put all your rebellion behind you, and find yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O people of Israel? "

My Thoughts

I feel like God was saying and that he still says....Look people... I love you so, so much... please be good....do what is right...I am telling you how.... I will give you a new heart and spirit and make it easy!! If you let me I will give you the desire and the power to do what pleases me (Philippians 2:13). I want you to live forever in heaven with me!!! I don't want you to die!!! I want you to live in love..with me in heaven... Please listen to me. I have so much to give you if only you will grow up!!

My visual is like a parent that has a beautiful car to give his child...he wants him/her to have it so much!! It is a classic...beautiful, expensive .... the parents want to give this to their child... but they can't give it to him/her if they know it won't driven safely...that could put the child they love and other in danger..... so the parent waits until the child will treasure himself and the people around him enough to receive such a wonderful gift.

God has so much he wants to give us so much!! He can't wait to give us blessings, He wants to pour out his blessings on us...but we have to be ready and responsible... we have to be able to use our blessings for others and for ourselves in safe and good ways. Then God showers us with amazing things...the most amazing of all is the gift of eternal life with him!!

11.7.11

2011-11-07T07:58:00.000-08:00

Ezekiel 16:49 Sodom's sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door.

My Thoughts

Wow!...Oh, Wow!! You like to imagine that Sodom's sins were sins people don't talk about... especially in public... but pride, gluttony, and laziness!!!...All you have to do to know that America has crossed that line is watch TV .... Our commercials are are full of spend the money you make... spoil yourself you deserve it... It's yours...it all belongs to you and you should spend it on the bigger, the better... you should make sure that you have more than the Jones'.... Wikipedia states that, obesity rates in the United States are the highest in the world with 74.6% of Americans being overweight or obese......Then there is all that time we spend watching TV.... just watching TV....

We need to take action.... me! I know I do... We need to spend more time with God... We need to make sure the Jones' have all they need... instead of making sure we have more, bigger, better... When we give, God multiplies.

I wonder how long Sodom was on that slippery slope.... Our great country was founded because people wanted a place to worship God, to love God..... people helped one another plow fields, build houses....God rewarded their hard work, their goodness and their kindness...in a few short years in the big scheme of things America became the greatest nation....then the pride set in..we forgot who made us great... we forgot our neighbors.... gee today most of us don't know our neighbors.

We can say "Well what can I one person do?" One person can make a difference in one life at least.... so a 1000 people can make a difference in a 1000 lives....10,000 people can make a difference in 10,000 lives... What if each of us chose to make a difference in 2 lives..... and there were 10,000 of us... that would be 20,000 lives that could be touched..if that 20,000 did the same that would be 40,000 that 40,000 could turn to 80,000.... one person that chooses to make a difference can! Look at sweet little Mother Teresa...she touched the world one life at a time!!! We can change America, keep it from becoming another Sodom.... but each of us has to make a commitment to do something each day that blesses somebody enough to spread hope... Hope comes straight from God through us!! Will you spread some hope today?

11.6.11

2011-11-06T06:42:00.000-08:00

Psalms 106:1 Praise the Lord! Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.

My Thoughts

When you feel in love wasn't it a wonderful feeling... do you remember feeling so thankful that, that person loved you back? I remember feeling thankful that Robby loved me!! I loved so much that he loved me... sometimes I stop and think how lucky I am that he loves me so much.

God loves us... faithfully... always! No, matter what we do God always loves us... it tells us right here that his faithful loved endures forever.... God's love endures everything we do... God always loves us.... God sent Jesus so that our sins could be forgive and we would never have to be separated from Him.

We are called to be thankful to God for loving us... We are thankful when our spouses love us... we are thankful when our children love us.... W are thankful when our friends love us....We need to always be conscious of God's love for us. It is hard to be thankful of things we are not conscious of... it is hard to be thankful when we have not paid attention. What if somebody hid a ton of presents for us in the bedroom... we got home and didn't even know they were there, we would even know to be thankful. We often do that to God...we don't take time to find out what God has done for us...so we don't know the presents he has hidden away for us.... we don't stop to notice all the wonders around us that he has created for us to enjoy...we forget to be thankful....

God does not ever forget to love us... we should never get so busy with life that we don't pay attention to the fact that God loves us... we need to stop and take time... so we can be aware of all that we have to be thankful for. So that we are aware of just how much God loves us....when we take the time to be aware...to truly know how much God loves us we can't help but be so very thankful!!

11.5.11

2011-11-05T07:10:00.000-07:00

Psalms 105:37 The Lord brought his people out of Egypt, loaded with silver and gold; and not one among the tribe of Israel even stumbled.

My Thoughts

I just loved this verse when I read it.... It said so much to me. God sent His people out loaded with treasure!!... all they would need... God was taking care of them from the get go!! So much treasure that it may have even felt like a burden... but, God was with them and one even one of them stumbled.

I believe that the gold and silver could have been seen two ways .... It could have been seen like too much to handle... or it could have felt like a gift!!.. The Israelites had been in captivity for years at this point.... I believe that they didn't stumble because they were thankful to God at that point....they had their hearts and minds in the right place.... they had their eyes oh God.... their hearts on being thankful. They were aware of where their treasures came from.

I wonder how many times we get our mind off of God and forget where our gifts come from.... and we begin to feel loaded down.... we stumble from all that God has given us... because we forget to be thankful...we don't stop and take time to notice that what we have is a blessing. When we stay thankful...when we keep our eyes on God, when we seek after God... God will make sure that we don't stumble under the weight of our blessings....that we are strong enough to handle all that we have been given. We can see our jobs as a blessing, fully aware that our job is a blessing from God...and we will be strong enough, capable enough to handle it...or we can take our eyes off of God, off of the place our blessing came from and forget that our jobs are gifts and they become so heavy...they can seem too hard to carry...we take our eyes off God and we stumble under the weight of the blessings God has so graciously given us.

The Bible tells us that "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13) When we keep our eyes on God and our heart thankful... we see our gifts as what they are gifts.... living in the joy of those gifts makes the load something that we are excited to carry... Keeping our hearts thankful gives us not only our strength but the strength of God who is able to carry anything without stumbling.

When we hold our head up... toward God...it changes our center of gravity and makes us strong!!

11.4.11

2011-11-04T06:41:00.000-07:00

Hebrews 6:10 For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers, as you still do.

My Thoughts

I love this verse especially coupled with Psalms 102:11-12 which says, For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. God's love is amazing...God forgives and forgets our sins. God.never forgets how hard we have worked for him... or how much we have show our love to him...and he loves us as high as the heavens are above the earth! WOW! How amazing is that kind of love!! Just stop and think about this kind of love.... close your eyes and take it all in!! Meditate on it for a minute or two... go ahead do it... you wont be able to contain the smile that will creep across your face at the thought of how much God love you!! Now remember that feeling...and draw on it evey time you need it!! It has the power to change your life!!

11.3.11

2011-11-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

Psalms 105:1 Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done.

My Thoughts

I was thinking about this verse... I use to see it more as letting people know what the Bible says... now I see it more as letting people know how wonderful God has been to me. When we let others know how thankful we are to God for all that we have. The little things, the big things. The people in our lives, our jobs, it helps others see what God has done in their lives. To just let others know how thankful we are that God put them in our lives is a way of letting them know how much we love and appreciate them... and it lets God know that we are aware of how much that person is a gift from him. Can you imagine how special you would feel if somebody told you, you were to them "A Gift From God!" People need to feel special...I can't imagine feeling any more special than that!!

God has blessed my life so much with the people that love me... they are wonderful! My most special gifts!! My husband, my children, my son-in-law, my son's girlfriend.... my daddy .... my brother... my sister-in-law, my niece and nephew these are the people left in my life that give me stability and strength and always love me.... my cousins, the built in friends of a childhood.... my aunts and uncles that taught me different things than my parents. My mom and my grandparents who are in heaven looking down... All gifts from God..... Then there are friends...those little gems of sparkle and shine that brighten my day. My church family, where so many of my dear friends come from... they are there always... there are so many of them that I could just pick up the phone and they would be here for me...they are here for me lifting me up in prayers... teaching me more and more about our wonderful God... then there are my friends around the world that I have meet through card making and my love of all things yarn... they teach me and inspire me...they build me up and cheer me on...they make my days brighter all the time.... their encouragement is a wonderful gift.... God has given me so much just in the people in my life today!! The people he put in my path along the way. These people are all gifts from my God to me!! God has done so, so much for me....I will try to do my best to proclaim his greatness!!! Let the world know what God has done in my life. I am so blessed that my eyes have been opened to so much of God's goodness. The more I know God and the more I know of his great love for me...the more thankful I become. Thank you God so much for the people you have placed in my life...the most wonderful gifts of all!!

11.2.11

2011-11-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

Hebrews 4:15-16 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

My Thoughts

I love this... Jesus understands us... he faced all that we face! Jesus called constantly on the power and grace of God. We can too..we can go boldly, BODLY to God and tell him all that we are having trouble with. We don't have to hide!!! We can run to God and ask for help. We can say to God, "God, I am having so much trouble forgiving this person, please help me." "God I am afraid all the time... I can't leave my house, please help me." "God the devil keeps tempting me with this, Please help me!" We can boldly admit our weaknesses and God will give us his grace to accomplish what we could never do on our own.

Jesus talked to God all the time... was in constant contact with God... God's grace is what kept Jesus from sinning. Jesus said in John 5:19 that he only said what God taught him. Jesus drew from God's grace all the time while he was here on earth in a human body... being tempted by his flesh, by the devil. And God always, always supplied the grace that was needed.

King David went to God with everything... when he was angry with people he told God... when he was afraid of his enemy he told God... when he was sad he told God... he talked it all out with God and in the end would come around to doing what was right.

We need to boldly go to God with all of our day..with our waking up and going to bed...and all of our steps in between. When the phone rings we need to ask God to help us with our words... when we get in the car we need to ask God to help us with our driving..... when we shop we need to ask God to help us with our purchases... When we are ask a questions we need to stop and ask God to help us with our answer.... We we are angry we need to tell God and ask him to help us. We need to be in constant contact with God. When we are not use to that it can be hard... stopping to ask God, to consult God in all that we do and say...but it is so important to get into that habit of always, for everything going to God.... We need to ask God to help us with our words before we post on Facebook.... When we learn to always go to God we will never feel alone, ever!! We will learn that we are not ever alone God is always there by our side waiting on us to know that we need him... giving us the choice to ask for his help. When we do he will show us mercy and give us his grace!!

11.1.11

2011-11-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

Hebrews 3:14 For if we are faithful in the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed we will share in all that belongs to Christ.

My Thoughts

I asked Jesus into my heart at 9... I had cried that day at church and was told later that day what was stirring in my heart... I made the decision more because I was told to. Over the years I rededicated my life more than a few times.... I wanted to know God.... My babies came along and we got in Church because we wanted them to know God. I tried to be a good person. I tried to be a good mom and teach my children about God.... We read Bible stories each night. We said prayers with them each night until they were were probably in the 5th and 3rd grades. I prayed for people when they asked. I prayed for my kids to have a good life. I often heard people talk about their relationships with God in a way that made me wonder what it was that I didn't know. My son grew up going to RA camp each summer .... he loved it!! He knew God.... I always felt like God loved him special in some way because he seemed to really know God. My prayers were simple prayers...which is fine... but they were more like prayers at God...not to God... they were not prayers where I actually talked with God. I was probably pretty much as faithful as I was when I first believed... because all I knew was that if I asked Jesus into my heart I would be saved.... this is true!!... but I didn't know or understand at all how, HOW to have a relationship with God. I was always searching for what was missing in my life...I had a wonderful husband, still do! Precious children....I had all that I even knew to ask for...... but I was often anxious and depressed... overwhelmed by life. John-Robert would talk about praying...I would ask, "What do you say in your prayers, John-Robert?" He would say I just talk to God all the time...I tell him about my days. If you asked me if I loved God I would tell you yes. But, it was because I was suppose to love God.... like you love that aunt you don't really know..and see only at Christmas. If you asked me if I was going to heaven I always thought, "I sure hope so." I wanted to be a good person... I wanted to be a Christian... I wanted to "know" God. I just didn't know how to know God. Nobody really told me how.

Then one day my son gave me a One Year Bible for Christmas... well when your child gives you a One Year Bible... that is all separated by days... so that you can get through it on a year... you read that Bible!! I started reading on January 1st 2010.... at first it was so confusing to me... but I kept reading. The Bible tells us that if we seek wisdom, wisdom will come to us (James 1:5). The more I read... the more I began to understand. The more I read the more my prayers changed. I was building a relationship with God. I was learning to know God!! Then one day I was at the doctors office... I met a young lady there... not by chance I now know!!...God put her in my path... she remembered me enough to find me on Facebook..then after a few weeks she invited me to Bible Study. I kept reading my Bible...and by this time I was writing about a verse or a few verses that I read...learning so much while I wrote! I didn't know it but what I was doing was meditating on God's word when I wrote. Joshua 1:8 tells us if we meditate on God's word we will be prosperous and successful....I was getting prosperous and successful...I was gaining wisdom...I was building a relationship with God. That meditation was causing God's word to go from my head to my heart. I started going to the Bible study I was invited to..... and learning so much... and little did I know it...but I was surrounding myself with Godly people who would become my dear friends. I am learning so much from each one of them... learning how they apply God's word to their lives... and they too are learning from me.

I love God more today than I did two years ago...I love God more today than I did a year ago... Why? Because, I know God more... I know more how much God loves me... I actually know how much God loves me... I seek to know more and more and more!!! Do I aways do it right? Oh, no!! But, I am trying and getting better...and better ...and better.... I have learned to hear the Holy Spirit inside of me guiding me... I hear him better each day!!.. Am I sometimes fooled by the devil, you bet I am... but, I am learning... I am seeking after God, I am seeking to know God more... I am seeking wisdom...and applying it. Those years of doing it wrong...they are still all tangled up inside me and often I find myself going back to my old habits...then the Holy Spirit nudges me and I get back on track. The more I hide God's word in my heart the more I make right choices. To keep on track I have to keep making the effort... the exciting thing is God gives me the desire and the power to do what pleases him (Philippians 2:13). This is my favorite verse!! God gives me the desire and the power!!! My part is to seek after him... to hide his word in my heart. There can be so much that I have trouble remembering ...but, God makes sure that his word is there for me when I need it!!! God has changed my life in amazing ways!!! I still have the same sweet husband, the same wonderful kids... I have all that I could ever ask for!!... Now I am free from anxiety..yes it tries to creep up on me...but I rebuke it with God's word... I am free from depression... I have moments of depression, maybe a day here and there...but I don't have weeks of it anymore!! I do have joy!!! and peace!!...Amazing joy and peace...I find joy in the smallest things... When something makes me smile...which I do often...I know without a doubt, that the thing that just made me smile was a gift from God that he meant especially for me!! Now I know that I am truly loved by God...me, full of faults me...God loves me!! He loves me so much...i actually feel it in my being!! God loves me!

God can change us!! God makes us whole! Our part is to seek after him...when we do he will give us the desire and the power to do what pleases him.