Tag Archives: love

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Tell Them The Truth

Last night I was woken at one by a heart wrenching wailing. At first I thought they were screams of pain, and I guess in a way they were. I opened my window to pinpoint the sound so that I would better know what to do. Right across the street a woman was howling and pounding on the window of the house. As I groped for my phone to call 911 another neighbor shouted, “What’s going on?” Her reply was, “My brother just killed himself.” I finished the call and cried. My husband and I prayed. My heart hurt for the family, that young woman, and the young man who thought that life was so bad, he took his own.

How do you go back to sleep after that? I prayed some more. I thanked God that my children and grandchildren were safe. Then I asked God, “How many people committed suicide today.” Which led to, “How many were murdered, raped, abandoned, hurt, tortured, and left to die.” I didn’t receive an answer. So I asked, “Isn’t this breaking your heart?” Still no answer. As I thought about this hurting world, this evil world we live in, God reminded me of a blog I wrote recently. I had stated that asking God “why” when bad things happen is futile, what we should be asking is “What now?” Not the answer I expected, however, it was the one I needed.

The more I thought about the evil in this world, especially suicide, the angrier I got. No, I wasn’t angry at God. But I was so filled with hate for the Devil. That old serpent who still deceives. His original lie in the garden is the same one he uses today. He still tells us that something is being withheld from us, something that is either unattainable, or that we have to somehow get for ourselves. He lied to that young man and told him, “No one cares, end your life and the pain will be gone.” That man believed that the only way to peace was at his own hand. He never found out the truth that someone does care, more than he could ever imagine and that that Someone could have brought peace into his life.

I remember those lies. They used to be whispered in my ear as a young person. I had my battle with the spirit of suicide, the spirit of death, and I spent some time last night and today thanking God for staying my own hand so many times when I thought I couldn’t handle the pain anymore. Satin is evil. He has infected this world with his evil. BUT God is good!

So now I am asking God, “What now?”

His answer, “Tell them I am good. Tell them they are loved, they matter, they have value. Tell them the truth.”

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Heart Factory

Our hearts are a factory. They can either be factories for good, or factories for evil. In fact God says that we are born with evil hearts, because of Adam’s sin, and that they only produce evil.

Genesis 8:21 (ASV), “And Jehovah smelled the sweet savor; and Jehovah said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake, for that the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more everything living, as I have done.” (Emphasis mine)

Thankfully that wasn’t His plan for us, so He made a wonderful way for us to be like Him. His heart is LOVE. If we love Him and see our need for His saving grace He takes out our hearts and simply replaces it. A huge deal to us, but no biggie to Him, He was the first heart surgeon.

Ezekiel 11:19 (NIV), “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”

There are a few places in the Bible that talks about Him giving us a new heart, but this one scripture in Ezekiel specifies that this new heart is “undivided”. It serves one master, it has one nature, and it isn’t schizophrenic. These new hearts have the ability to love like God, to live like Jesus, and to beat to a new drummer. David in the Old Testament realized the importance of a right heart; we see it in several places.

Psalm 51:10 (KJB), “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”

One of the few things Jesus railed about was the condition of the hearts of the religious leaders during His time with us.

Matthew 12:33-34 (BSB), “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

Out of the abundance of the heart, our mouths speak. We say what is brewing up in there. We produce whatever we have laid on the assembly line. They have the power to be a factory for good it’s our choice. After He puts that new heart in there, think of it as a brand new crock pot, we decide what goes in. If we keep the lid on nothing will get in that isn’t supposed to (guard your heart and mind, God tells us). So if the finished meal tastes like… manure, you have to ask yourself, “What did I put in there?” Got it? It isn’t going to produce anything if we aren’t putting something inside, it will produce garbage, yuk, stink, etc, if we aren’t putting in good wholesome things.

If our hearts are a factory, think of your eyes, your ears, your brain, as the source of the materials you will be building with. You can build with quality building materials (precious stones), or poor materials (wood, hay, and stubble). You choose. They can produce bitterness, angry, perversion, murder, and everything ugly from the pits of hell.

Or they can produce the most beautiful garden from heaven. The best thing we can put in our hearts is God’s word. The word takes root and grows in our hearts. Love takes root there, generosity, grace, mercy, truth; all of those wonderful attributes of God grow well in our hearts

What are you producing in your factory?

 

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Be Thankful

Every person still living on this earth has something to be thankful for, if only the fact that you are alive. Ok, I know there will be some that say, “If you knew what my life was like, you’d wish you were dead.” I know, I’ve been there. However, if the alternative is hell, then thank God you’re alive. If your final destination is Heaven be thankful that God isn’t done with you yet, because if your work here was done, God would have taken you home. Be honest, most of us have a myriad of things to be thankful for. If you are a born again Christian, just think for a minute what your life was like before you were saved, and then thank God for where you are now!

If we really know who God is we will not have to hunt for something to be thankful for. When we fall so in love with God our hearts will be so full of gratitude that we can’t help but sing and shout His praises! We won’t even care if we can carry a tune or not, it won’t matter what anyone else thinks. We won’t be able to help ourselves.

Excerpt from my book “Further In”

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Steadfast Love

Isaiah 63:7 (ESV), “I will recount the steadfast love of the LORD, the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel that he has granted them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.”

Other versions uses the words “lovingkindnesses,” “the deeds for which He is to be praised,” “unfailing love,” and “mercy and grace.”

In today’s world we don’t use the word “steadfast” often, partly because we live in a throwaway society. Cars, appliances, clothing, relationships just aren’t built to last. No one wants to take the extra effort, or they are too selfish and greedy and only want to heap to their own lusts. They have the technology to build things to last virtually forever, but then they would only sell one. So they make them to fall apart in a few years so that a new purchase will be made. We have the grace and strength from the Lord to make relationships work, however very few people want to stick it out.

Steadfast. It means faithful, committed, devoted, and according to Webster’s it means, “firm in belief, determination, or adherence, and firmly fixed.” His love is steadfast. It doesn’t change. Ever. You can’t earn more and He can’t love you any less. His love doesn’t depend on performance, there is no strings attached. He is determined to love you. His love for you is devoted and faithful and fixed.

Because of that great, steadfast love, we can be confident of His faithfulness. He cares and because He cares He works things out for us. His love has no strings attached; however the benefits of His love are conditional. We have to accept His love. We have to build a relationship with Him. We can’t use the worlds view or our natural experiences to try and figure out His love. We have all been hurt and disappointed in someone we loved but who used and abused us, or maybe was indifferent. A relationship with God isn’t an unhealthy attachment, or a one sided love affair. He isn’t a leach who wants to drain us dry. He wants us in relationship with Him so that we never miss out on a blessing, so that we are sure to hear His voice when He speaks to us. He wants us to spend time with Him and communicate with Him because He enjoys us.

Exodus 20:6 (NLT), “But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.”

Feeling like a failure? God loves you! Checkbook is on the light side? God loves you. Fighting some bug, or disease? God loves you. Family issues? God loves you. Identity issues? God loves you.

I can keep going.

Seems over simplified? Nope.

Because He loves you, He is working in you to perfect that which He began. (If you will let Him)

Philippians 1:6 (KJB), “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:”

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Tom’s Mom and Christmas

One day Thomas Edison came home and gave a paper to his mother. He told her, “My teacher gave this paper to me and told me to only give it to my mother.”

His mother’s eyes were tearful as she read the letter out loud to her child: Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have enough good teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself.

After many, many years, after Edison’s mother died and he was now one of the greatest inventors of the century, one day he was looking through old family things. Suddenly he saw a folded paper in the corner of a drawer in a desk. He took it and opened it up. On the paper was written: Your son is addled [mentally ill]. We won’t let him come to school any more.

Edison cried for hours and then he wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was an addled child that, by a hero mother, became the genius of the century.”

True story. What does this have to do with Christmas?

Christmas is a time that we give gifts and we remember the gift of Jesus to the world. To me Thomas Edison’s mother is like Jesus, and his teacher like the devil. No pun intended (only because it’s not funny). The devil wants us to think of ourselves as unworthy, un-usable, un-wanted, and all of those other ugly “uns”. But there is our parent, Father God, who tells us just the opposite. You see, like Edison’s mother, God see’s our potential! What a lovely gift.

Edison was a genius. He invented so many things that helped others, many that we still depend on today. The gift his mother gave that one little boy, ended up being a gift to the whole world. We have to think about this. If we choose not to believe God’s version of who we are, we are stopping the gift from flowing. No telling how many people will be affected. His love, His approval, His opinion is all that matters. Everything else is just irrelevant.

Mrs. Edison recognized the importance of what we say to our children. She chose to only encourage and love. That is our Daddy God.

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Surrender

 

William Booth: Founder of the Salvation Army said, “The greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.”

Surrender has to take place in so many areas of our walk with God. First, we have to surrender our hearts to Jesus. Then, we give Him our past, our mistakes, and our sin. Once forgiven and restored to the Father, then we have to daily surrender ourselves.

We can believe that God is real, that His word says wealth and riches are in our house, and still not receive. Unless we surrender out paychecks and bank accounts to Him. How do we know we have? When paying tithe doesn’t cause us to cringe, when giving an offering is an honor, when God tells us to give up something we worked hard for and give it to another… we can do it cheerfully. Jesus told us about the rich young man who came and asked what he should do to inherit the kingdom. Jesus said to follow God’s commandments and when this young man said that he had, Jesus asked him to surrender his wealth. He told him to go and sell all that he had. That young man left with much sorrow. He wasn’t sad because he was going home to sell everything. He was sad because he really wanted to please God, he just couldn’t surrender his stuff. He chose to surrender to his flesh. We have to be fully surrendered to the Father. A partial surrender is no surrender at all.

For me, one of the hardest things to surrender to God has been my worry, and my plans. (Or my worrying about my plans). We sing in Church, “I surrender all my plans and dreams”. Recently when we sang it, I thought to myself, “Have I done that?” At that particular time the answer was, “NO.” It was a few weeks before the Fall Extravaganza Expo. This is an example in my life of an area where I needed to surrender. I have been in charge of the Expo for six years now and every year I am anxious that everything goes well, that I don’t disappoint anyone, that vendors and shoppers are thrilled, that the Church makes some much needed money, and that the whole thing is a success. Then, I worry if my stuff is good enough, if I will have to bring it all home again, if I will make enough money to make it worthwhile, and the list goes on.

I had to purpose, in my mind; to go back to the day that God showed me the craft show in our gym. I had to remember the gifts and talents that He gave me. I had to stand on all the prayers and the confirmation of the Church leaders. I had to surrender the day to Him, and refuse to worry or lose sleep over it.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NLT), “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.”

Satan likes to use our past against us. There have been times that I jumped on the bandwagon and moved way ahead of God. So the enemy likes to remind me of those times. He tries to get me to doubt that I really heard from God, using those past mistakes as an example of my lack of communication with the Father. Or he outright lies and says that I am not allowed to have dreams or plans of my own, that my plans aren’t good, Godly, or important. But when we surrender our plans and dreams to God, it doesn’t mean we give them up, or that we shouldn’t have dreams or plans. In fact we are encouraged to dream big! So we do plan, we just make sure we are on the same page as our Father.

One synonym for surrender is submit. Submission means “under the mission” so when we surrender our plans to Him, we are simply submitting our plans under, or unto His will, His timing, and His direction. So practically speaking when we have a dream or a plan we give it to Him. We surrender it. Then we ask for direction and wait for the leading of the Holy Spirit. Not something super spiritual, just allowing the normal communication between your spirit and God’s to take place. We may start out up and running full speed ahead, at His leading. Or it may be slow going at first with much prayer and meditation. Either way, don’t get so caught up in those plans that you aren’t putting God first, or shutting out that still small voice. Sometimes He is going to ask you to wait, sometimes to slow down, and other times He may ask you to change your plans. The ideal situation is to be so hooked up with Him, to practice being led by His Spirit, that your plans just line up with His. However, in reality sometimes we just want something to happen, or have some great idea that is only from our flesh. By submitting them all to Him we are giving Him permission to mess up our plans, or to confirm and expedite them. One way we submit them to Him is to share with our elders. Ask them to pray with you. This is a great place for comfirmation.

“God has a plan for His Church upon earth. But alas! We too often make our plan, and we think that we know what ought to be done. We ask God first to bless our feeble efforts, instead of absolutely refusing to go unless God go before us.” ? Andrew Murray , Absolute Surrender

When we know in our hearts that God has gone before us, that the plan is His, or approved by Him, we can surrender in confidence. It is His ability that brings it to pass. It might not be an immediate success, however, if we preserver, it will happen. The Expo is a great example of this, every year it gets better and better.

There will be times that He will ask us to change our path, or the way we are doing something. Just like Sue said a couple weeks ago, there will be times that He asks us to “change lanes”. We are still accomplishing what we set out to do, but we are going about it in a totally different way. What Sue called taking the exit ramp and going around in a circle, God has shown me as “going around the mountain.” We know the song, “She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes” for a while that seemed to be my theme song. I would try to reason out how to make something happen, or why it didn’t happen the way I wanted it, or where I went wrong. God says that is wasted time! When I thought moving forward would be a waste of time if I didn’t figure out all my mistakes, God was trying to save me time by getting me to move forward. At another Church we attended we had some families leave the Church. A friend came to talk about it with me and said, “The ship is sinking and we need to figure out who is punching all the holes in hull.” Of course, he wanted to blame someone. I don’t take credit for what I said to him that night, God gave me a picture in my head and I simply answered, “if a ship is sinking, the first thing you do is shore up the leaky places, you fix the ship first, and stop it from sinking.” I expected an argument, but he immediately agreed. That was God. Praying about it later God showed me that we don’t have to figure everything out. Asking “why” can be such a waste of time. He had it covered. People left because He was doing some housecleaning. Had we tried to play the blame game, some very nice people would have gotten hurt, and the Church may not have been able to pull out of the rough time.

When things don’t go as planned instead of asking God “Why?” A better question to ask Him would be, “Now what?” He has a plan. Our circumstances aren’t a surprise to Him. He has us covered. Keep looking to Him to lead you. We can put the cart in front of the horse and end up with a lot of back peddling, or we can give our plans to Him, keep dreaming and open our hearts to direction. He knows what we need. Sometimes what we need is different than what we want. He is faithful and loving. As a good Father, He wants us to have only the best.

Matthew 6:32 (Net Bible), “But above all pursue his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Philippians 4:19 (NIV), “And my God will supply all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

Another big area of surrender that seems to elude Christians is surrendering our past. People go on pilgrimage, a journey to a place of spiritual significance, Christians and Jews go to the Holy Lands, Muslims go to Mecca. Some Christians take a pilgrimage back into their past, remembering every little ugly sin on the way, theirs and others. They make a big deal out of it; it’s a type of “penance” for them. This is a very important place of surrender, letting go of those mistakes. Like I said before, Satan is more than happy to remind us of them, but God says He has forgotten our sin, that He has cast them as far away as the east is from the west. He didn’t say North to South. If you travel from the North Pole, you eventually reach the South Pole and vice-versa. However, if you start from anywhere on the map and travel east, you never reach the west. It can’t be done. No matter how far you travel, there is always somewhere farther east, you just keep going in circles. That’s how we are to look at our sin. It’s gone! It’s under the blood. Stop revisiting those places!

In my own life, in hindsight, almost every place where I really struggled with my faith, those distressing seasons in my life, were during times when I hadn’t fully surrendered. Our enemy will attack, but if we are totally surrendered to our Loving Father, He will lead us out! We don’t have to camp there. On the other hand, if we have areas of our lives that we haven’t given over to Him, we can find the duration of the attack much longer than needed.

We all have to stand for something. We have heard that saying. So it also should be just as obvious that we have to surrender to someone as well. People surrender to an enemy because they fear for their lives. Then they live a life with rebellion and fear in their hearts. We have only a few options. Surrender to Satan, who is an abusive father and our end is Hell, to the world and our flesh who are careless parents who want to spoil us with stuff and feed our lusts, (which will ultimately end us in Hell, both of these kinds of surrender keep us weak), or we can surrender to a Father who IS LOVE. A strong Father who defends, protects, and provides for us. Surrendering to Him transforms our lives now, and gives us a wonderful future in eternity with Him. In this surrender we find strength, just as William Booth said.

When we have trouble surrendering, it simply means we don’t trust Him. When God told me that I cried! Just thinking about how that made Him feel. I love Him, and felt that I was really getting more intimate with Him, yet there I was carrying a load that I wasn’t meant to carry, one that subconsciously, I didn’t trust Him to carry. Sometimes we just get lazy and forgetful. We go through a dry time, or even an easy time, and start carelessly picking up stuff we once laid at the cross, or listening to a voice that isn’t God’s. Before we know it we are “going around the mountain” instead of moving forward. Remember one of Satan’s main tactics is to distract us from God’s plan and path. If he can keep us focused on ourselves and going around in circles, then we can’t see clearly where we are supposed to be going. That’s why it’s so important to daily surrender. We can trust Him, in fact anything less than absolute trust is a lack of surrender, and God says it is sin. We should find it easy to surrender to someone who knows us inside and out, who loves us so lavishly, and knows what’s best for us.

Did you mess up today? Surrender it to the Lord. Did you have a great accomplishment? Surrender the glory to Him. Do you have loved ones that need saving? Stop nagging them and surrender them into the Lord’s hands. Are you wore down and tired of fighting? Turn the battle to the “Gate”! The battle is the Lord’s. Most of all stop trying to make things happen, stop trying to figure it all out, and just talk it over with Him. He is faithful, His Spirit will lead you and His word will light your path.

Isaiah 30:20b-21 (NASB), “He, your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left.