11.14.13

Hebrews 12:10a For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how.

My Thoughts
This goes on to tell us how God's discipline is because He loves us and wants the best for us.  But this verse just stood out to me today!   When that happens I think it is a God thing.  All good things come from Him.  This verse comforted me me deeply.  As a parent I tried really hard.  All I ever wanted was to be a wife and mom...and I wanted to be a good mom!  So many times I failed so bad, it would have helped me so much if I had know God as deeply as I do now, but I didn't. I knew Him more on the surface.  But I read books and parenting magazines. I did what the doctor told me and I was pretty good at it...then we hit the teen years...and there just were not magazines that covered the teen years. I was not as good at those... but I still tried hard... even when it didn't always show.  Thank goodness God only puts us in charge of our children for a few years!! And I always, always loved my kids, even if they didn't always feel it...I believe they always know it. 

What comforted me when I read this verse is that God knows!!! God knows that we as parents do the best we can with what we know at the moment. God knows that some days are much harder than others.  God knows that sometimes life challenges get in the way of parenting. God knows that sometimes we under parent and sometimes we over parent.  God knows that sometimes we are too tired to parent.  God knows when we are doing the best we can and God knows that some days our best is more and some days I best is less.  God sees the big picture.  When we ask God forgives our mistakes and forget them, even when I children can't God knows that we are human.

What I am learning as the parent of adult children is that now I can lead by example.  That even if I didn't know God like I do now... now I can be a godly example. I can pray that what I do good in life now, that I didn't know how to do before, effects them in positive ways. I can be there for them when they need me... and I can move out of the way when they don't.  I an act in love.  Because now I know that love is action... not a feeling. The feeling might follow.... but love is an action. And I can love them by trying my best, with God's grace, by being patient and kind, never being envious, boastful, proud or rude by trying not to demand my own way.  I can do my best, with God's grace not to be irritable and I keep no record of being wronged.  I can rejoice when truth wins out...but never rejoice in injustice.  I can never give up on them, never lose faith in them and I can endure through ever circumstance with them.  (I Corinthians 13: 4-7).  I can pray for them... I can cheer them on. I can grow best by not dweling on what I didn't know how to do...and loving God all that I can.  Loveing God makes me a better person which in turn makes me a better parent!
 

11.12.13

Hebrews 11:6 And it is impossible to please God without faith.  Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.

My Thoughts
I love this...we must believe that God has good things in store for us!!  I have heard of people being criticized for saying, "If I do this God will reward me."  Treated like they were in "it" for the rewards.  Here we are told that we are to believe that God will reward us.  And the Bible is filled with promises of rewards!  There are all kinds of "if and then" statements in God's word.  Because Sarah believed that God would give her a child, even though she was too old, Sarah had a child.  But we have to believe in order for God to give us His promises.

In  Isaiah 30:18 it tells us that the Lord must wait for us to come to Him. For the Lord is a faithful God.  Matthew 16:19 says, "I give you the keys to the Kingdom. Whatever you bind up on earth is bound up in Heaven and what ever you loose on earth is loose in Heaven.    God waits for us to show our faith by asking with faith ...then he acts on what we ask for.  It was just recently that I "got it" when it said, "I give you the keys to the Kingdom." We have them, God gives them to us.. WE have to use what God has given us and WE have to open our mouths in faith. 

You might ask me how I know this to be true... I can tell you because I am living proof!  I lived with Lupus and Fybromylgia for 12+ year.. not sure how many + years I had...but I was told 12 years ago that I had Lupus, then Fybromylgia followed.  Then God gave me these two verse... first Isiah 30:18 just before I went off to retreat, and Matthew 16:19 once I got there.  I started using MY keys to God's Kingdom... binding up sickness and pain and calling down healing and restoration... 10 days later I woke up and was drying my hair, getting ready for Church and I knew, that I knew, that I knew that I felt healthy...not sick on a really good day, but healthy!!  I finally learned how to sincerely seek after God and all the rewards that He promises me!!

Please, please believe in the wonderful rewards of God. If you do... on there are so many wonderful things in store for you life... wonderful things. 

11.11.13

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 conscience from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God.  

My Thoughts
Conscience: the part of the mind that makes you aware of your actions as being either morally right or wrong : a feeling that something you have done is morally wrong

I knew what conscience meant...but I needed to read the definition!!  I know that the Bible talks about throwing our sins as far as the east is from the west (Psalms 103:12... that God does not remember our sins. But I loved reading this and knowing that God does not want me to wallow in my past sins.  God wants me to be able to move forward so that I can focus on Him... not all that I have done wrong. 

I was taught to feel guilty... like you were not sorry for what you did wrong if you didn't feel guilty. We need to be sorry for our sins, we need to ask forgiveness and we need to ask for God's grace when we want to sin again.  But once we ask for forgiveness, God forgives us.  And we need to forgive ourselves too so that we can worship God.  If we are busy worrying about all that we have ever done wrong we are not free to worship God.  And that is exactly where the devil likes us to be...stuck so that we can't worship. We are told here that Christ purifies our conscience, the part of our mind that makes us aware that we have done morally wrong things.  God makes us right. God frees us to worship Him. 

God told me once after my mom died, "Jeannie if you are busy worrying about what you didn't know how to do, you won't be able to become the person I want you to be." This very verse confirms what God told me that day I was wallering in worry of things that I had not done, of my sins of omission. 

God does not want us waling around feeling bad all the time... God want us to feel so free of all burdens that we are able just to love and praise Him.  When we do this it honors God and it grows us!!  Wow I love that!

11.4.13

Hebrews 6:19 This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.  It leads us through the curtain into God's inner sanctuary.

My Thoughts
I love this ...a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls!! An anchor for our souls!!  I love that word picture!!  Even tossed in a storm when we are anchored to God by Jesus we can weather the storms of life!! And when we are anchored and the sun is shining bright we don't have to stay at the controls of our ship...we get to go about the ship and enjoy life.  The anchor has everything under control! Held firm into place!! On top of all of that... when Jesus is our anchor He takes us straight to God.. to the safest place we can be.  An anchor with GPS...we throw it out into the waters, no matter where we are and it lands in the inner sanctuary of God.  We have to be smart enough to never cut that anchor from our lives even in the toughest storms then we will come through to the other side...better and stronger than we have ever been before.   

11.3.13

Hebrews 4:15-16 This High Priest (Jesus) 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

Jesus understands!! He understands every single feeling we have! So we can talk to Him about anything...we can boldly tell Him how we feel.

I loved reading this today... just loved it... I needed it! For most of my life I just did not understand this... I felt like I could only go to Jesus when I was being good. Now I understand that I can go to Jesus when I am at my worse, when I am having my worse thoughts ever and that is when He will go to God on my behalf and ask for God's grace to help keep us strong, to help us make the right decisions in spite of ourselves!!

How wonderful that God sent Jesus to earth to be a man, so that He could totally understand us! So that He would know exactly how we feel... how wonderful it is that Jesus called always on God's grace to help Him not sin... and God will give us that same grace to help us not to sin. We just have to learn to go to Jesus before we sin, so that we don't have to go after we sin. I never really understood that I could go to Jesus and say, "Oh I feel like sinning, I feel like giving in! Please help me!!" It seems an odd thing to say...but isn't it much better than saying, "I have sinned please forgive me!" Jesus "gets us"... He so understands... we just need to understand that we can go boldly and confess our desire to sin...and ask for help!!

11.1.13

Hebrews 3:19 So we see because of their unbelief they were not able to enter his rest. 

My Thoughts
Oh wow! Looking back over my life this verse really hits home. For so long I thought I believed in God.  I did believe that God existed .... I believed that Jesus died of my sins. I had been taught that all of my life.  But there was so much that I missed...even when I thought I was trying.  All along there were things my Sunday School teachers would say, or that the preacher would preach on...that I just didn't believe.  I more felt like I didn't "get it" ...but really I didn't believe it.  Why? All because I didn't understand all that God says in His word.  Why didn't I understand?  Because I had not taken the time to read God's word for myself.  I had only read bits and pieces and then I had just gone on what the preacher preached. I probable had faith about a few things...but not about all the things that God promises me.  I just didn't know all the things that God promises me. I had not read them for myself. And all along I was never at rest... I didn't know how to enter God's rest.

If I think about it...what I believed is that Jesus died so that I could be forgiven and that I needed to be good.  That may be all that I really understood.  I sure didn't understand that if I loved God and kept my eyes and my heart on Him, He would make me want to be good, and He would make me able to be good. I had the Jesus died for my sins part right. I just had no grasp what so ever on God's amazing grace...that made me able, that gave me the deep desire to do better and better and better.  I was out in the world trying to please God by my actions, not by loving Him and accepting all that He had to give me.  Once that I learned about how God loves me so completely... I couldn't help but love Him... once I knew how to look for God's love around me, I couldn't help but feel loved by God.  Once I got that...the peace of God just flowed down from heaven into my life like a river filled from a never ending rain.

These days I just bask in the peace of God...sometimes I stop and feel a bit sad for the me that was trying so hard without direction...so void of God's wonderful peace.  Once I understood the Holy Spirit and learned to actually feel His presence inside of me... my life was, finally, forever changed.

You might be asking, as you read this, "How did you get to this place?" I always had that question in my mind when I met a Christian that glowed with God's peace and understanding.  But I would never ask for fear of looking like I was not a Christian myself.  What I was, is a Child of God stuck at the very beginning of a wonderful journey for years upon years... Found but so lost all at the same time.  And all along I was afraid to ask, "How do I get what you have?????!!!!" I can tell you how I got what I have today... I picked up my Bible and started reading.  God tells us that if we seek wisdom, wisdom will find us.  And that is just what happened to me. It happened when I had not ever known that promise of God.  I started seeking wisdom...and slowly but surly I begin to understand...and as I did I begin to live under the protection of God.  Then God wanted me so protected that He surrounded me by godly people, who taught me even more...now I live totally in the peace of God.  Every once in a while when I feel peace slipping away...I go running to God and find out where I put peace down and picked up the world... and I fix it fast... because peace, the peace of God is an amazing place to live!

10.31.13

Hebrews 2:1 So we must listen very carefully to the truth we have heard, or we may drift away from it.

My Thoughts
I can so see this verse in my life.  We were always trying to do good. We would find a church and go for the longest time, trying our best to do good.  Then something would happen and we would drift away from Church. We never seemed to fit.  This time when we found our church, we did a couple of things very different, quite on accident. First we were reading our Bibles daily, each of us when we started Life Church.  Second we went to church and learned to be the church not get from church.  Oh we still get so much from church, but we are also very much a part of being the church. 

I have learned that I must listen carefully to God's word in more ways than just hearing the pastor preach on Sunday morning.  I just listen to the words of God as I read them.  I must renew my mind daily.  There is so much in God's word that it will take a whole lifetime to learn it all...and I got a late start.  When we would go to Chruch on Sunday and that was our lesson in godly things by the next Sunday we would forget what we learned...if we couldn't make God's word stick for a week how were we going to do better for a lifetime?  Now I know how to do better for a lifetime, study each day, every day of my life...then as I do what I learn each day... what God teaches me will become a part of who I am.  I just have to keep on keeping on forever.  As I do this my life just keeps getting better and better and better... such blessings follow our efforts.

11.13.12

Hebrews 11:23 It was by faith that Moses' parents hid him for three months when he was born.  The saw that God had given them an unusual child, and that they were not afraid to disobey the king's command.

 

My Thoughts

I love this! Moses' parents defied a king to honor God. Look what happened!  Not only did Moses live...but his mom got to be his nurse, she got to raise him... he had his mom to love him and he had all the treasures of being a prince...then, then he became a great man, a great leader... all because his parents had faith!!  Oh the stories his mom must have told him when he was old enough...and oh how those stories of faith must have molded him and shaped him to be a man of faith himself!! 

 

This story tells me at least two things... that when we honor God the blessing that He sends down on us for honoring him are far more than we can imagine. Those stories of faith in our own lives need to be passed down to our children and grandchildren to grow their faith. We need to stay aware and notice God and what He does in our lives...we need to remember what He does for us and share it with our children and grandchildren so their faith can grow strong.  We need to remember so our faith will stay strong.  Oh and yes...these stories of old...we need to read them over and over again until we understand their importance so that they will grow our faith.

 

The faith of Moses' parents did so much... it set them free, it set their whole family free, it set their friends free... it set a nation of people free... it put in motion so many of the great miracles of God, years before they happened that teach us even today how mighty our God is! It saved their son, it gave a mother back  her child. We never know how important our acts of faith may become!

11.12.12

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

 

My Thoughts

All it takes for our faith to start growing is having just a little of it to begin with. Then we need to make sure and pay attention. As things start to happen in our lives through our faith, our faith grows. The more times that I stop and pray, "God, I am putting this in your hands, I know you will take care of it." And He does, and I stop at take time to notice that it was God the stronger my faith is the next time and the faster I put my problems and situations in God's hands.

 

Just think how much faith the priest and prophets of old had to have to tell kings and nations of people the things that were about to happen to them!! So often the news they were taking would have gotten them killed if God had not been their protector!!  Then God would do what he promised, promises he sent down through the prophets and priest. The people would learn to believe the words of the prophets and priest.  God made sure that they had a good reputation. 

 

When I stop and think about the people I know with good reputations I realize that they are the godly people I know.  And one thing I know about those people is that they have such faith in God!!  Their faith comes from knowing God and His word so much that they know what to believe in. They know God's voice in their hearts. They know God's word enough not to be deceived by Satin. These are the special people I can go to for advice and trust that advice.

 

Our faith produces so much... the more our faith grows the more gives we are able to receive from God.  God cares about every part of our lives and the more parts we give over to Him in faith the more He is able to do for us...and in the end He even makes sure that we have a good reputation!! 

11.11.12

Hebrews 10:25 Let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near.

 

My Thoughts

The harder life gets...the busier life gets.. the more stressful life gets...the more important it is to meet with our brothers and sister in Christ so that we can keep each other strong.  So we can build others up and they can build us up.  So that we have the opportunity to feel God's love through others that love God.  When wee take time to meet together to honor God, God honors that time. 

 

There is strength in numbers.. energy produces energy... love produces love when we spend time in the presence of God with others that love God in us grows stronger.  We need to build our strength in the hardest times...for the hardest time.  And we need each other to build that strength strong!

Hebrews 10:1-2 The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves.  The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship.  If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.

 

My Thoughts

Oh wow... I love this.. just love it!!!  Jesus is the new law... He died once and cleansed us from all of our sins, every single one of them!! And look at this part, it is so important, "their feelings of guilt would have disappeared."  God does not want us to feel guilty!!  Did you hear that??? It is so important, I will repeat it again... God does not want us to feel guilty!!!   In verse 12 of this same chapter it says this "Then He says, 'I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.'"

 

Our part is to go to God when we mess up, and say (and mean it!), "Please forgive me I have sinned, I have messed up."  Then we are suppose to move forward and do our best to do better.

 

What I have come to understand is that guilt comes for Satin... he loves to make us feel guilty. When we feel guilty we act in all sorts of ways... some of them hurt us and some of them hurt others.  Guilt can make us withdraw from the world, or react in anger. Guilt can keep us from people we love.  When I wallered in guilt I become completely useless, I get filled with anxiety and become immobile completely incapable of doing me or anybody else any good at all.  That is not from God... guilt is not from God.

 

When God sent Jesus, Jesus removed our sins and our guilt.  God convicts us.. to remind us that we are about to do wrong or that we are doing wrong..but as soon as we confess God forgives us and never again remembers our sins or lawless deeds!!  God, Himself says, "I will never again remember their sins or lawless deeds." If God does not remember what we did wrong, God can not make us feel guilt for our past wrongs. 

 

When Satin comes along and tries to use guilt to keep stopped in our tracks  he does it so we can't do good. Or he uses guilt to make us act out in anger... or make us think only of ourselves.  All we have to do is use God word to send him on his evil way!!  We can say that God does not remember my sin!!  God has forgiven me...I am right with God!!  Those very words can work wonders over our lives.

 

After my mother died I was feeling guilty one day, thinking there was so much more I could have done for her.  Right there in that moment God dropped this into my heart, "When you waste time worrying about the things you didn't know how to do you can't become the person you are meant to be." 

 

We are suppose to learn and grow in wisdom... moving forward all the time.... doing our best to be better and better at being a child of the most high God. God knows that we have to grow!!  Lets not waste time in guilt.... lets not accept that burden that the devil himself places on us and accept that wonderful love and forgiveness that God give us, so that we can become the people that God intends for us to be!!

Hebrews 5:7 While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God.

 

My Thoughts

I looked up the meaning of reverence... here is how it was defined....

1.

a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration.

2.

the outward manifestation of this feeling: to pay reverence.

3.

a gesture indicative of deep respect; an obeisance, bow, or curtsy.

 

To revere someone we need to feel it and show it in our actions.  If we feel it we will be in constant contact with God throughout our day.  We show it by our actions...by doing what God would have us do.  By asking ourselves before we act, "Would this please God?"

 

God heard Jesus' prayers because Jesus had a deep reverence for God.  Have you ever felt your prayers were only getting as high as the ceiling?  I have!  It is not because God is not willing to hear.. it is because we have failed to show God our reverence for Him. 

 

We don't have to be perfect!  God sent Jesus because we are so far from perfect.  But we do have to love God. Truly love God not just say we do.  We have to believe that Jesus died for our sins and rose again on the third day.  Then we show God we love Him by spending time with Him, always learning. Then we put what we have learned into action. 

 

This verse doens't say God heard Jesus because Jesus was Jesus... or because Jesus was perfect...it says that God heard Jesus because Jesus had a deep reverence for God.  If we look back at David and his life... God listend to the prayers of David and David was far from perfect. But, David always, always revered God.  God heard David's prayers.

 

If we think God is not hearing our prayers we need to stop and ask ourselves, "Have I show God how much I love him? Have I given God the reverence He so deserves?"

11.1.12

Hebrews 3:16-19

And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard his voice? Wasn’t it the people Moses led out of Egypt? And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn't it the people who sinned, whose corpse lay in the wilderness? And to whom was God speaking when He took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn't it the people who disobeyed him? So we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter His rest.

My Thoughts

Here is what I have learned. I can't believe what I don't know.... and it is up to me to learn it! For so long the only part I truly knew was that Jesus died for my sins and if I believed in Him and asked Him into my heart I could go to heaven. I heard that part, I knew that part, I believed that part... I wanted to believe that I would go to heaven. But because I didn't know all the other wonderful things God could and would do for me... I was not able to be a part of all of that. Not being able to be a part of the peace of God made me question if I, me, Jeannie was really going to heaven. What I didn't know...I couldn't believe in...what I didn't believe in I couldn’t get.

There are so many, many "if's" and "then's" in the Bible. God tells us all the time, "If you do this, I will then give you this." The better I get at the doing...the more of the treasures I receive. Don’t get me wrong...I can't work my way into heaven...to get to heaven I have to believe in Jesus, ask forgiveness of my sins, and ask Jesus to come into my heart. I can't work my way into heaven...that is a gift from God, it is God's grace giving me what I could never earn. But there are so many, many other gifts of salvation. Once you learn what they are and you do the "if's," "then" get start reaping all the rewards that God loves to shower down.

God's rest comes from giving God control of my life. Learning to say, "Here I am God." The more I give God my thoughts, my words, my feet, my hands, my heart, my thanks‘, my praise. The more rest I feel because I know that God has my life in His hands and He is going to provide all my needs!! And on top of that He cares about the desires of my heart and He will give those to me if they are good for me.

There is a couple at my church, Terry and Dot Lewis. They love the Lord so much... He needed a lung to live, they believed! They believed that God would provide. He would make Terry's lungs better or make sure he had a new lung. They never gave up...they always had such peace. Terry got sicker and sicker and they still believed, they showed such peaces and rest. This week Terry got his new lung...and is doing wonderful. His progress after his transplant is amazing. When they took him back to do surgery they realized that Terry was closer to deaths door than even the doctors knew. Terry was in his final hours of life. If he had not believed and if he had not rested in God Terry may have used up that energy that kept him going, but Terry and Dot knew that God's plan was a good plan...they kept believing. Today Terry has a new lung. Dot and Terry knew God's promises and they believed.

If we what all that God has for us... we have to believe in God and His promises.... to believe in those promises we have to know them and understand what they are. "If we take the time to learn and believe "then" we get to have all the blessings of God.

Each day I know more... each day I believe more... each day my life gets better and better... each day I am more rested because more and more and more of my hope ... more and more of my life I place in God's hands.

If you want that kind of rest I beg of you to find a Bible that you can understand and start reading it... If you want to know.. all you have to do is pick up your Bible and tell God you want to understand and each day you will understand a little more and a little more and a little more.. Then one day you when you wake up for your sleep you will feel that smile on your face and that peace in your heart that only comes from trusting in God. It is amazing!!

10.31.12

Good  morning!!  There were so many good things in my Bible reading today!!  I just had a hard time picking what I wanted to write about.  I finally decided on Hebrews 2:16-18 because it is so important to our lives.  If we get it into our spirit we can go to Jesus with everything.  But if you get the chance read Psalms 103... it is so uplifting!! It will just make you happy!!

 

Hebrews 2:16-18 We also know that the Son did not come to help angels; He came to help the descendants of Abraham (us). Therefore, it was necessary for Him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers ans sisters, so that He could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then He could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people. (This next part is the part we need to really get!) Since He, Himself has gone through suffering and testing, He is able to help us when we are being tested!!

 

My Thoughts

Jesus Know!  Jesus Gets It! Jesus Understands!  He knows all that we are going through, Jesus knows how hard it is here on earth. We can tell Him anything!!  We grow stronger when we learn to go to Jesus as soon as we are tempted, because Jesus understands temptation!!  So often, I believe, we are ashamed when we are tempted, then we don't ask for help from Jesus and we fall into that temptation.  When we get it that even Jesus was tempted and learn to go to Jesus as soon as we want to do something we know we shouldn't, even and especially those things we are tempted with that we would not share with anybody!!  When we go to Jesus when we are tempted He understands that temptation and makes us strong enough to say no!!  He tells us how to say no! The minute we go to Jesus with our temptation we become stronger against it.  If we will tare down that wall of our shame in temptation and talk to Jesus about everything... it will save us from a multitude of sins!!

 

PS

So often when I am tempted I say you don't need to do this Jeannie... you shouldn't do this Jeannie. And I fail!  When what I needed to do was say, "Jesus I so bad want to do _____________ and I know it is wrong, please help me be strong!"

11.16.11

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

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

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

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

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.

11.9.11

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!!