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Showing posts from January, 2016

You Are Already

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I awoke this morning, as many mornings, with thoughts of the day and week before funneling through my conscious mind. After several of them cleared, I turned my inner heart to God and said to Him, “I want to be acceptable in your sight." photo credit: fuzzbucket/deviantart And He quickly replied, inaudibly, but I ever so clearly heard, “You are already." You are acceptable and approved. Jesus is all of this for you. Jesus did all of it for you. In Jesus, and you are in Jesus, you already are. Oh, how we wander away from the simple facts of faith. We get concerned that we are not included by humans. We are not asked. We are not invited. We are not offered ______________. You and I can both fill in that blank of everything we ponder that we think we want or need, but that has not yet been. And then we forget the fact that it is: God, not people, determines our acceptance and approval. God meets all of our needs. God opens doors and closes them. God or

Never Stop Growing

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Life rattles me from time to time. This is common to people who are trying to grow. Doesn’t life rattle you? "Less of me and more of God" is the mantra I want to embody, but oh, how self-centered and self-seeking I can be. photo credit: sublimeone/deviantart Just yesterday I saw someone that I had not seen in years. I greeted her cheerfully and was encouragingly responding to what she was sharing about her life. Then bam! out of nowhere I got clubbed over the head by her comments toward me. She shared her observations and reflections of one of my children as she knew him/her when he/she was younger and was telling me what problems she clearly observed in this child in particular but how she didn’t share it because she figured I was in denial and would not listen anyway. It was a learning disability. She said from her experience parents didn’t want to know. I was dumbfounded. What? How? Why? Then she added, "Well, you are a teacher, aren’t you? I figured y

Lose Your Ego and Your Christian Ego

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“ For me to live is Christ and to die is gain .” has been my life verse for many years. It meant more --it was more real-- during the years that I was going through trauma counseling and had to cling to God moment by moment in order to survive and at least have some semblance of sanity to function in the world. But it is so easier to “fake” it -- that is, to pretend a walk with Christ -- when you are not needing to desperately cling to Him in order to wake, walk, sleep and talk. To live is Christ... is that so? If someone followed me around all day long and recorded not only my outward actions and words but my inward thoughts would this recording say “to live is Christ" about me? No, because not even I would admit it at my present state. But then, I am pretty hard on myself, especially lately. Oh, how do I get back to the rawness of “to live is Christ and to die is gain” kind of life? It takes truly practicing the presence of God. Photo Credit: seorangpremp

Lose Your Former Days and Need for Other’s Praise

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photo credit: perhydrol/Deviantart Ok, these two “lose” topics do not fit together, but “days” and “praise” rhyme so I thought what the “hey” maybe God will bring unity to them in the end. I confess. I have been doing that a lot lately: confessing, that is. But, I confess that the devotional topics over these 40 days are quite heavy and really hard to deal with in a single day, so combining them does not help, but I don’t want to skip one. (Who am I a slave to? Who set that goal?) Today I will start with the Bible verses, since yesterday I ended with them and concluded that it might have helped me to focus more on God if I started with them. “ Don’t say, “Why were the former day better than these?” since it is not wise of you to ask this ” (Ecclesiastes 7:10). I will need to examine this above verse in context. I am left with so many questions, aren’t you? And the next Bible verse is: “ The fear of man is a snare, but the one who trust in the Lord is protected ” (Proverb

Lose Your Hurts and Your Offenses

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I feel stuck. If you look at the past week of my blog writings you will see that I seem to be going in a downward spiral. I guess that is not really that I am stuck but moving downward. On the positive side I am moving. I am making my point clear? I am running in circles. And heading down. I am Stuck - My Junk And the whole point could be that I am focuses on me. I thought this 40 days was supposed to have me focus on God. I keep wanting to say, “Ugh!” but that does not sound like something an educated writer would say. But “UGH” expresses what I can currently verbalize. Another positive note is the more I move down, I can only improve as the days eventually go on. So I dread looking at the next two topics in our church’s 40 day devotional: hurt and offenses. Some things have happen in the past few days that is causing me to be “off.”  The top shelf in our bedroom closest came crashing down. The Closetmaid braces pulled out of the walls and most of them simply snapped.

Lose Your Guilt

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There are several keys to understanding guilt. The first one is that guilt is a normal human reaction when we do something wrong, especially when we get caught. Another is that it is common among men, we all have felt it.  For Christians, guilt is not to be a lifestyle but an emotional we feel and then process through when we admit we have done wrong to God and man, and repent. Jesus is the standard of right and wrong. Also Jesus is the reason we as Christians do not have to live in a lifestyle of guilt. For Christians we do not have to suffer through a waiting period, in a sense a purgatory of shame, before we accept God’s forgiveness and let him take our guilt away.  Once I learned this Bible verse I cherished it and quickly memorized it: "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). If you haven’t learned it yet. Memorize it. You will need it many times in life to keep from suffering false guilt and believe me the worl

Lose Your Complacency

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Six days in a row. I am not sure I will make it 40 but I have not given up yet. Maybe I will soon combine two days to give myself a day of rest. Who am I doing this for anyway? Life check? Is God requiring it of me? no Is it something I want to do? partially Is it something I am afraid to stop? partially What gives? I have not written on my blog basically since my mother died in Oct of 2015. So I started writing on it again five days ago to expand on the devotional verse given by my church to help us focus on God during a 40 day prayer time. And now I feel compelled --like if I miss one day I will have an incompletion in a college course. But since this is not so, what compels me? I am writing again and making it public. I have been writing but I have kept it private. I almost came to the point that it does not matter if I write...because frankly, no one really cares. It does not effect anyone or anything expect for my mind and time and family. I have come to bel

Lose Your Self-Reliance

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My husband’s life verses are: “ Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. ” (Proverbs 3:3-5) These verses were in his grandmother’s home so upon visits to her house-- and there were many in the summer when he was young and she lived in town-- that he pondered these words. In later years they became dear to him not only because of their familiarity and the blessed association he had of wonderful times visiting his grandmother and likewise spending a great deal of time with his cousin, but because his relationship with God deepened, and the fullness of the words spoken in the Bible became something he could hold onto in all seasons to bring him to the right direction of how he should respond and walk in a manner pleasing of God . Oh, how we need a fresh wind of faith and action in the church of Christians--in general--of deep reliance upon God alone! It is quite an e

Lose Your Idols

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My church’s devotional text today is Isaiah 44:9- All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame.  This is the same verse in the New King James - Those who make a graven image, all of them are useless, and their precious things shall not profit; They are their own witnesses; They neither see nor know that they may be ashamed. In C ontext Chapter 44 in Isaiah begins with God speaking to His servant Israel, His chosen people in a very loving, reassuring tone. Listen to some of His words: "Fear not, ... I will pour water on him who is thirsty...I will pour My Spirit on your descendants and my blessing on your offspring” (from Is 44: 2-5).  Then God “LORD, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts” reminds them who he is: “I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God” (Is 44:7). and He continues: “You are My witness. Is there a God

Lose Your Insecurity

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We all struggle with insecurity. We never feel like we measure up, that we are good enough. But what are we trying to measure up to and who are we trying to be good enough for? We live in a world where we are continually judged and criticized, not always in a negative way but simply as part of life. People all around us are looking at the way we look, act, and speak and making decisions about us. They are thinking about if they like us, if they would like to know us, if they would want to work with us or include us. We want to be accepted, invited, wanted and ultimately loved. But whose opinion matters? People are so fickle and frankly it is so hard to please people. You can be “in” with them one day and “out” the next. So many people treat others as trash that can be discarded whenever they feel like it. Instead of cherishing the velveteen rabbit that has been with them throughout the ups and downs in life, they one day look at the raggedy stuffed thing and want to toss it away for

Lose Your Labels

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My church devotional today is “Lose Your Labels” using Galatians 3:28 - “There are no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  This verse does not say poor or rich, but it does say slave or free. And Jesus speaks in the gospels about not treating people differently regardless of their condition in life. Photo by Chelsea-martin on DeviantArt An Experience  I unconsciously labeled someone last night. I was eating out with my daughter and a dear friend. As we were leaving and putting up our dishes, I noticed a socially awkward man refilling his drink in a plastic, soft drink container. At first I thought he was toting along oxygen and had a nurse aid with him, but upon further examination I realized the young lady in the nurse attire was not attending to him and indeed what he was rolling around with him was a slender, upright, black, material-covered cart with his belongings. He was cheerful and talkative to the people gathering

Lose Your Baggage

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Today’s verse that I have looked at in my church devotions is Hebrews 12:1: " Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great could of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us ," We are encouraged to search ourselves to find what in our life is hindering and entangling us and therefore is “baggage" in our life that we need to let go.  I love to read verses in context to get the full meaning of a verse. The books of the Bible were not originally written with chapters and verses, so I decided to look at Chapter 11, especially since our verse begins with “therefore” indicating that it is pertaining to what came before it. In Context Hebrews 11 is known as the chapter of the Bible that defines faith by giving a definition (“ faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen ”) and providing many examples of people from the Ol