8.16.12

Matthew 17:11 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.

My Thoughts

As a parent I love this verse...it gives me a tiny bit of insight into how much God loves me...how much God loves you!!  There is nothing that I would not do for my kids, if it is in their best interest...and if it is in my power.  Above everything I want them to live forever, love and be loved, have joy and happiness and peace.  Sometimes I have the answers, but they don't always listen and it is painful to watch them struggle with something when I know that if they would just listen life could be so much better.  Now that they have become adults they have total free will, apart from me to choose to do things their way.  As parents there comes a time when we have to stand back and let them make their choices and it is hard to do. 

God loves us so much...He wants  us to have eternal life, He wants us to love and be loved, He wants us to have peace and joy and happiness...God cares about the desires of our hearts. God give  us free will...He wants us to choose Him... He wants us to choose love, peace, joy, happiness, eternal life. God even gives us all the answers to have these things... but just as we have to give our adult children free will to make their own choices, God gives us free will to make our own choices. 

God puts His advice, his instructions in print, God has even seen to it that we have lots of different versions of the Bible so that we can find the words that make us understand it most. God tells us if we seek wisdom from His word that He will grant us wisdom.  If we just seek after the knowledge of God, God will make sure that we "get it."  There are so many Bible in print that most American homes have several...yet so many sit on the shelves and collect dust.  Just like our words often collect dust in the brains of our children.

Just think how much better God will make our lives if we listen to Him!!  If would could make the lives of our children a little better we would!!...God loves us more than we love our children. God's love is a perfect love... all encompassing, all knowing, flawless!!  God can give us so much and wants to give us so much. God will give us so much... we just have to listen and follow His instruction.   It is amazing how we can shake our heads at our children for not listening to us...and then we go about our lives not listening to God. 

No matter how good our lives seem...we all have a chance for a better life... God will make our lives better and better and better and better...our part is to listen, to seek and to learn. God will take care of the rest!!

8.15.12

I Corinthians 10:13 The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful.  He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

My Thoughts

I love this!!  We will be tempted...it it will seem easier to do what we know we shouldn't do! But, BUT,  God will show is a way out!!  We just have to remember this verse...we just have to stop and say God what is my way out??  There is always a way out... always!!  We just have to ask God to show us!!  When we ask God to show us everything else will fall right into place..it will all be ok.  When we choose to do what God ask of us...when we take the way out of doing wrong, of sinning God rewards us for our effort. 

Us people please-rs need to remember it is way more important, and way more profitable to please God than it is to please people.  God knows our needs and He cares about the desires of our hearts, when we choose to please Him, He will make sure that our needs are taken care of!!

8.14.12

2 Chronicles 7:14 Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.

Psalms 33:12 What joy for the nations whose God is the Lord.

My Thoughts

Each day I read from three books... my One Year Bible, The Secret Power of Speaking God's Word, which puts scripture in catagories. And I read from Love Out Loud.  Two of my scriptures today made me think of the up comming election.  I see all this stuff written on Facebook...the media twist things for their liking...Union people like on party... no union people like the other. Each party twist and trun the truth about the other party. People act like who becomes president is the life or death of our country...and while it is important it is not the be all end all... in 4 years we can vote again (Thank goodness!). What is important is that we love God.

God is in control...our problem is that God gives us free will and we too often use that free will to make bad choices. And our bad choices are not who we put in Washington... after all Washington can't control this wild weather we are having. Even with laws about schools having snack machines or not Washington can't control our health.  But God can!!.. God can heal our land, God can soften the heart of any president, God can bring joy to our nation.  It is up to us to put God in control and we do that by humbling ourselves, praying, seeking God's face and turning from our wicked ways.  No matter how the voting comes out in November we still have a choice...we still have a chance for our nation to do better...we put that choice into action by seeking after God and choosing to do right over choosing to enjoy sin.

Our media likes to make it confusing and complicated, our media likes to paint a bleak picture of high prices and not enough gas or food.  Our media thrives on, makes money on the negative, no wonder they don't include God.  God's work is positive... God's work is powerful... God's work benefits his children.  But to benefit from all of God's glorious power we have to act like we are God's children. We have a choice every day to live in a great nation... we do this by loving God...then God will take care of even the worse possible president, the driest land, the out of control weather, the national dept, our health. 

We are not helpless...we are not hopeless... our can make a difference as just one person...we can choose to cry out to God...we can choose to turn from our wicked ways...when we do God will heal our land.  Because God keeps all his promises.

8.13.12

Nehemiah 6:9 They were just  trying to intimidate us, imagining that they could discourage us and stop the work. So I continued the work with even greater determination.

My Thoughts

The devil has been trying to discourage me lately... so much going on ... so many stumbling blocks.  The devil even keeps putting things in my path that I have no control over and telling me that I do.  He is putting sickness in our way and financial things in our way... time robbing things in our way... trying to get us discouraged... just like he tried to discourage Nehemiah.  Nehemiah continued his work with even greater determination!!  That is what I will do!! 

I needed this verse today!!  Imagine what the devil will do if when we move forward doing what God would have us do, and he gets in our way, it makes us more determined!!  God's word tells us over and over again ...when we keep our eyes on Him, He will take care of us. Nehemiah's determination was God's grace coming down to make him stronger.  God can make me and you stronger... God will make us stronger if we call out to him...if we stand on His word against the things Satin brings against us.  I have no doubt that if I keep my eyes on God...if I stay determined ... God will bless my steps. God will bless my efforts!  God blessed Nehemiah's determination, Nehemiah finished the wall!! 

I know that God puts the stories in the Bible that will help us. Today...when I woke up discouraged and decided to press forward ... it was not by chance that I came upon this very verse..that I read it good and did not skim over it... it was not by chance that this verse stood out. It was God, telling me in His word to stay determined, that He is with me and the He will honor my steps!!

8.12.12

Psalms 32:3-4 Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt.   I said to myself, " I will confess my rebellion to the Lord." And you forgave me! And all my guilt is gone.

My Thoughts

I love this... when we confess our sins, God forgives us and all our guilt is gone.  God does not try to make us feel guilty.  When we have not confessed our sins He may remind us of them so that we can confess ...but once we have ask forgivness we don't have to feel guilty at all.  I use to tell my kids when they were little "A mistake is only a mistake if we don't learn something." I wanted them to know if they learned they could  do better next time, that everything was ok. I didn't want them feeling guilty all the time.  I think that is why God wants us to confess our sins by name...if we do then we recgonize what we have done wrong and we will be better able not to do it later.  If we just say forgive me of my sins and don't stop and recgonize what sins we have commited, we will do them again and again and again.  God does not remind us of our sins to make us feel guilty, He reminds us of them to help us grow.  Once we have asked forgivness God forgets them, He throws them as far as the east is from the west then we can begin to grow again. Once we have ask for forgiveness God never remembers our sins again.  All our guilt can be gone. 

The devil loves to remind us of past mistakes ...if he can get us feeling guilty he can stop us in our tracks.  He can keep us from being loving and kind, he can keep us from moving forward in God if we are wallering in guilt. He loves to stop us in our tracks.  If we have ask for forgiveness and are feeling guilty we can be sure that it is the devil that is prompting that guilt.  We can tell the devil that God has thrown that sin as far as the east is from the west (Psalms 103:12) and that he can just go away and leave us alone!

God loves us so much that He doesn't want to remember our sins... He doesn't want anything between us and His love for us.  God wants us to be able to grow in him.  We grow best when there is nothing between us and God.  God knows our steps before we take them, he is never surprised by what we do...God knew the things we would do wrong before Jesus died for our sins. God still sent Jesus to forgive us all!!  So we should never hide anything from God... He already knew we were going to do what we did. The wonderful thing is that He is up in heaven, knowing and ready to forgive us anything if we just ask.  God is waiting with open arms to love us and make life all better!! Waiting to make us whole again, guilt free and filled with His love!!  All we have to do is confess our sins to Him.  Isn't He amazing!!

8.10.12

Proverbs 21:3 The Lord is more pleased when we do what is right and just than when we offer Him sacrifices.

My Thoughts

In Matthew 22 the disciples ask Jesus what the most important commandment was.. Jesus said that we are to love God with all our heart, soul and mind. And that we are to love our neighbor as our self.  Psalms 54:13 says that we are to make thankfulness our sacrifice to God.  The verse above says to me that it is more important to be loving to God and others than it is to be thankful.  And it is so important to be thankful to God!  So important!  And as important as it is to be thankful it is even more important to be loving, to love God and to love people.  We can be thankful all day long.. but if we are not loving to the people around us we have pretty much voided out that thankfulness. I believe it is like this... If we are really thankful for all that God as done for us, we will choose to be loving to Him and to others.  When we are loving, when we treat people like we want to be treated.. we do what is right and we do what is just.  It all works together... when we love, like we should love all the following all the other commandments will fall right into place! Love is what matters the most!!

8.9.12

Proverbs 21:2 People may be right in their own eyes, but the Lord examines their heart.

My Thoughts

This made me think of how we try to talk ourselves in to being okay with our actions sometimes.  I think we do this because we know that in our heart we did what we should not have done and we want to make it okay in our minds.  When we start feeling ourselves justify our actions...we need to stop and ask ourselves, "Where was my heart?"  If our heart is in the wrong place we need to ask God for his forgivness and for His grace to do better in the future.  We need to be honest with ourselves so that we can learn and grow...so that we do better. 

I have come to believe that God celebrates our baby steps... anytime that we move foward God smiles.  When we do something that is questionable the devil smiles as soon  we start justifying our actions to ourselves.  When we are honest with ourselves we are taking that oppertunity to learn how to do better, that makes God smile.  When we realize we have done something wrong we need to ask forgiveness, ask for God's grace to do better, learn from our mistake and move foward. Then if we feel guilty we need to recognize that, that is the devil talking. He knows that if we are wallering in guilt we can't move foward and grow.  We tackle that guilt by telling the devil that God has forgiven us and he can just move on his way!!!  Then we do better next time.. even if it is just a pinch better we are doing better.  Foward growth is always, always a good thing! We need to recognize progress and be proud or ourselves, and thank God for His grace. His wonderful grace that helps us grow!!