1.29.11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.