11.30.13

Daniel 6:4-5 Then the other administrators and high officers began searching for some fault in the way Daniel was handling government affairs, but they couldn't find anything to criticize or condemn.  He was faithful, always responsible, and completely trustworthy.  So the concluded, "Our only chance of finding grounds for accusing Daniel will be in connection with the rules of his religion."

My Thoughts
Colossians 3:23 Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.  This is what Daniel did... He worked just as if he were working for God and the people administrators and high offers no matter how much they searched could not find fault with Daniel.  We should live our lives in such a way.  And when we are talked about because we are "religious fanatics" we should ware it as a badge of honor.  Once people start attacking our religion because that is all that they can find fault with, we have done good.

On the flip side of that we never, ever want to be called a "religious fanatic" if we are always using our religion to put down others, or as an excuse not to act in a loving manner. We can only ware the title of "religious fanatic" proud if we are acting in love. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 tells us exactly what love is and how to act in love... it says, 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.

If we believe that Jesus is the Son of God,  if we work like we are working for God, and if we act in love... we too could face a lions den with confidence like Daniel did. 

11.28.13

2 Peter 1:2a By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.

My Thoughts

I am learning this... I seem to only be getting it in bits and pieces... but I am growing.  As much as I know that when we make excuses we can't change I can still find myself doing this... making excuses.  Then God gently sends down something that teaches me to do better. 

It seems to work like those sappy movies or TV shows work...in 30 minutes to a couple of hours everything comes together..everybody has something that fits too perfectly into the puzzle and the whole family learns something, the same something in the end.  Today as I was reading my Bible I was reminded of something in my past that I needed to ask forgiveness for.  Then Satan, himself tried to give me excuses...then in my reading I read in 2 Peter 2: 19 it said For you are a slave to whatever controls you. God put it all together for me...just like one of those cheesy movies. I do love cheesy.

We can let how others have treated us control us, or we can let our guilt controls us... just the same as we can let drugs or alcohol control us. We can let an "I can't help it." control us. We can even let the affirmation of others control us... or we can call down God's grace over our lives and take back the power over sin that God says that we can have.  

I am slowly learning that God has so much in Heaven waiting on me...there for me to keep me strong, to make me a better person, I just have to call it down.  I keep waiting on it... without calling down what I need...then when I call down what I need amazing things begin to happen.  Just recently I learned to call down God's grace...I know I am slow!!! I kept waiting on God's grace just to fall down from Heaven and help me.... when all I had to do was call it down!!  Silly me.  I had one of those moments that play over and over in your head happen.  One of those moments that you can talk to death with your spouse and you both get worked up.  Instead of getting carried away by it I just kept asking for God's grace. I ask for God's grace for my replaying thoughts, His grace for the thoughts I had about my thoughts, I asked for God's grace to kept my mouth closed....I asked for God's grace to make me feel love... I asked for God grace to help me act in a loving manner no matter what I felt.... and you know what? God sent His wonderful grace!  How many times have I lost my peace because I didn't call down God's grace? Too many to count. God recently sent me Isaiah 30:18 So the Lord must wait for you to come to him so he can show you his love and compassion. For the Lord is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for his help.  I am so thankful that God showed me this verse in a way that it stuck. It is changing my life, yet again He grows me.  So blessed ar we that God would keep growing us, giving us what we need to live Godly lives.

11.26.13

Daniel 3:16-18 & 26 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied, "Oh Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us.  He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty.  But even if he doesn't, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up."  26. So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stepped our of the fire.

My Thoughts

Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego loved God so much that even if He didn't save them it was okay, they would serve Him no matter what! Then God did save them. Today I was really struck by these words. I had prayed to be healed for several years before God healed me... but just a few weeks before I was healed we had had a discussion at church.  I said that night and meant it with all my heart, "Even if God never heals me that is okay.  I know that He can but if He chooses not to I am going to be fine because I know that He loves me. He has brought me through so much already."  I believe that me getting to that point was key in my healing.  When we truly love God with all our heart, His blessings fall down on us! We must love God even if He never chooses to do anything here on earth for us.  We must get to the point that we trust God to take care of us in Heaven no matter what we see before us on earth.  What I choose to do for God needs to be out of my love for Him, not out of what I think He will do for me in return.  What He chooses to do for me is just extra... His love for me and my love for Him is what is important.  Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego knew God could save them and loved God even if He chose not to.  

11.25.13

1 Peter 3:13-14 Now, who will want to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it.

My Thoughts

I use to be a people pleaser!  I still love it when I get to make the choice to please people... I have sometimes made the wrong choice because I want to please people so bad. I have even made bad choices in my past to just please people. As I have learned to choose to do what is good in God's eyes...I so often get to please others, but sometimes I can't and I am finding that that is okay too. I am learning to give it to God and say to Him, "God please soften their hearts towards me." And He does.  

One of the best things that has happened to me as I have learned to do what God ask is that it has made making choices much easier.  I find that my options are fewer and that is a good thing... it simplifies my life. If I take my list of options and take away anything that would not make God happy,  my list gets smaller. Then when I go that next step and ask what God would want me to choose  my list gets even smaller. I no longer have to spend days thinking what to do, or days wondering if I did the right thing.  And if somebody does get upset with me... I can know that I did what God wanted and that is what really matters. 

I still mess up sometimes and fall back into those old patterns.. patterns that I learned as a child... and that is where God's forgiveness comes in... I tell Him that I am sorry and ask Him to send down His grace to help me...and I get a little bit better each day.  I know without a doubt that God is rewarding me because the better I get at choosing to do what pleases God the better my life gets...and the better my life gets because of God's blessings the more I want to please God.  I am amazed at how God blesses us... how He pours down His blessings on our lives. When I take the time to stop and think of God's blessings on my life my heart can feel like it is going to burst with joy. And in that same moment I can feel such peace. Peace that feels like I am sitting on a gym sized cloud... right in the middle of it on a almost cold day... wrapped in a blanket that covers the whole cloud, floating in warmth and peace.  Choosing God, choosing what God wants for my life only brings good things. Yet it brings me enough strength that when I do face troubles I will be able to stand strong...I find that amazing!

11.24.13

1 Peter 3:4-5 You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God. This is how the holy women of old made themselves beautiful.  They trusted God and accepted the authority of their husbands.

My Thoughts

I know someone that does this.  If you knew the lady I am thinking of you would never guess her age. She is amazingly beautiful and if you knew her age you would know even more so how beautiful she is.  She is so soft spoken yet when she speaks the whole room listens because they know that wisdom will flow from her mouth.  Her husband has never fixed his own plate when she was home to do it for her, he respects her so much that he has taken her shoes off of her feet and slipped her house shoes on as she washed the dinner dishes. This lady loves God with her whole soul and she acts in that love of God by the way that she treats others.  She meets them where they are at and she helps grow them by her example.  The kindness she shows extends into others lives so much so that it reaches out and touches through the example of her actions, so many other people that she may never even meet.  Any time I walk into a room where she is at I feel comfort and love, because she allows the comfort and love of God flow through her.  She makes everybody around her want to be a better person.  I have been around people that I didn't want to see me mess up, but this lady makes you want to be better even when she is not looking.. not for her... but for God. The amazing thing about her is that even if you mess up, you know that you can tell her and she will love you still, pray for you to be stronger in the future, do all that she can to help you grow... and never see you differently than before.  I have learned so much from this lady, this amazingly beautiful lady.  Because she loves God so much, my life will never be the same. I feel beyond honored to call her my friend.  I feel special because she calls me friend. When we honor God with our lives people know. Do not pass up the chance to be all that you can be by loving God and honoring Him by living His word. 

11.22.13

1 Peter 2b May God give you more and more grace and peace. 

My Thoughts
I just felt joy when I read these words! Great joy!  I smiled so big that my face hurt.  To think that God gives us more and more grace and peace.  That means that we get stronger and stronger in Him.  That means that bigger and bigger things can come along and we will be able to deal with them with God's grace! It means that I wont be blown over by little things any more...that God is making me stronger and stronger .... and as much stronger as I am now than I was 4 years ago... in 4 years I will be even stronger... and when I face life's situations... I will have peace... lots of it!!  It means that the wonderful peace I feel now.. will just get better and better... no matter what I might face!!  There is no end...the more I study God's word.. the more I know God... the better life is going to get even in the mist of problems. Life is going to be better on the best days...and life is going to be better on the worse days because God sends down more and more grace and peace!!  The thought makes me want to dance!!    

11.21.13

Matthew 6:10b May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.


My Thoughts
We studied the Lord's Prayer last night in church... but we skipped over this verse. When we did it rather broke my heart. The person teaching the class was getting to some important information about other parts of the Lord's Prayer that were very helpful... I learned so much. But when I read over this verse as we went on to the next verses I could not help but think of my healing.... a gift from God that was in Heaven all along waiting on me to call it down in faith. I secretly desired to stand up and say... please let's go over this part of the prayer too!! And let me tell you why it is important in my life.
We were taught last night that the Lord's Prayer was a model prayer...that we could use it to write or say prayers of our own... following this outline. Then we were given verses on some of the verses in the prayer that explained this. For me Matthew 16:19 is an example of this very verse... Matthew 16:19 says, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” for me this is the same as May your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Jesus tells us in both places...that we can bind up evil and sickness and we can set loose love and healing. It is God's will that we love, that we are healed, that kindness abounds. God binds up evil and does not allow it in Heaven...there is no sickness in Heaven. So when we say our prayers modeled on the Lords Prayer this, to me, is our place to bind up all that is bad...and set loose all that is good.
Why did I notice this verse and feel so strongly about it? Because God gave me this verse when I was being prayed over for healing from sickness... from Lupus and Fybromylgia... God showed me that the keys were in my hands...no the keys were in my words and in my faith to call down from heaven what is in heaven...and to bind up here on heart what God binds up in Heaven. When I bound up sickness...and called down healing in faith... knowing that God was sending me that scripture because He wanted me healed... then God sent down His healing straight from Heaven for me!
Why did God wait... Isaiah 30:18 tells me that. It says, "So the Lord must wait for you to come to him o he can show you his love and compassion. For the Lord is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for his help." And you know what... God gave me this verse just as I went off to retreat ... just before He gave me the keys to the Kingdom.

My favorite line in the Lord's Prayer is this line... "May your will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven" I will never again say that verse when I say the Lord's Prayer without smiling, without feeling blessed and thankful, without knowing that God wants me to have what is up in Heaven here on earth... I just have to go to God so He can show me His love and compassion!