I WILL NEVER LOOK AT THE NIGHT SKY THE SAME AGAIN

In studying the book of Romans, specifically chapter 4, a rather huge revelation was made clear to me; it starts with understanding just how great Abraham’s faith was. Abraham was about 100 years old when God promised to him that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars. And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith. (Genesis 15:6) Later in Genesis 17, Abraham’s name changes and he is told he will have countless descendants and be the father of many nations.

Here is this guy who is 100 years old and his wife who is about 90 years old and the God of the universe is telling him that he will have a son and countless descendants. They have just lived through many years of being barren and have undoubtedly started to believe that having children was not going to happen. Now, I don’t know about menopause in those days but certainly it is very conceivable that Sarah had already gone through menopause and her body was not capable of producing an offspring. I think of my brief few years of secondary infertility and have a small idea of what it was that Sarah and Abraham must have felt. You feel hopeless but Abraham’s faith is greater than this hopelessness.

Abraham believes God when he tells him he is going to have a son, an heir and descendants numerous as the stars. Despite their very old age and the years of living with being barren; despite the fact that Sarah's body is very likely beyond capable of having a baby. Abraham believes what the Lord tells him is true and he has faith that God is faithful in his promise to him. 

But the real revelation is that I am one of those stars. My faith in Jesus has made me righteous in the presence of our holy God. Abraham is the father of faith. He demonstrated to us what faith is, preparing us to believe in Jesus. Our faith in Jesus makes us a part of Abraham’s descendants. We are one of those countless stars in the sky. 

Abraham’s descendants will continue to grow as each new believer accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior by faith alone. New stars are being made each day that a new believer is born again. We are part of a rather ginormous family; that is the part that is so awesome.

God's Not Dead

I watched the movie God’s Not Dead tonight. The intellectual argument part was good but so not might thing as I just can’t process what someone is saying that has so much profound stuff in it without hearing it again and again or reading it so I can really process the words. In any case, it was a very good movie. I looked outside and saw the sun had just set behind the mountains but some sunshine was still coming through the clouds making a beautiful display so I decided I would take a walk with God. Along this walk God brought it to my attention that we are on a journey like a person walking down a path, we are going to encounter people and situations as we go along each day. God is working in us in each and every one of those people and/or situations that happens in each of our days. He is showering love on us, convicting us of our sins, drawing us to come closer to Him, encouraging us, bringing us wisdom, reminding us about Himself and His love, and so much more. Each day in everything we do God is working in and through us. He may be bringing us wisdom and strengthening of our faith as we read His Word or He may be giving you the encouraging words to say to a friend or motivating you to smile to a stranger who looks like they could use a smile from someone. Each day is filled with God’s work. How much more can we grow as believers if on our journey we take a moment with God to stop and reflect on our day, the people we encountered, the situations we were in, the conversations we had or didn’t have. We should be asking ourselves at the end of each day, what work has God done in me today? and what more can I learn and do tomorrow?

EATING WITH FAITH

I am starting my third week of the Daniel Fast. In a nutshell, the Daniel Fast is based on Daniel in the book of Isaiah who refuses to eat the spread of food the king provides but faithfully, stays committed to eating what God wants him to eat. It doesn’t specifically say what these foods are or what he was avoiding but interpretations of it say it is the sweets and meats. Ouch.  The guidelines I am using are from the book The Daniel Fast by Kristen Feola.

In my two weeks thus far, I have found that meat although yummy is set apart from other foods and put on a pedestal. Meat eaters worship their meat. The main component of every meal is the meat but I have found that I am sustained without meat and my feelings towards it are becoming more realistic. It is a food God provides but it should not be worshipped.

The sweet part has been easier only because of my Paleo eating which I think really helped prepare me for this fasting. I have discovered dates and making date honey from one of the many recipes in the book. My favorite breakfast smoothie is with dark chocolate hazelnut coconut butter, banana, whey protein, date honey, almond milk and ice. Yum.

Many people will stray from their diet New Year’s resolutions because of all the temptations, lack of total commitment and lack of faith. Our bodies are at war with our souls. Our bodies want the meat, the sweets, the caffeine, the bottle of wine but our soul which is part of our mind is wanting to do well and not eat the chocolate bar or gorge on a prime rib dinner. It is a constant battle that we cannot win on our own. Like the United States of America in the war with Britain for her independence, they needed help. God brought them the help they needed through the French.  We too need the help of the Holy Spirit to help us overcome sin and the evil that wants to control us through our bodies and our minds. Faith is the key to overcoming and conquering the worshipping of our food we eat and so much more.

If you have started a new way of eating and want it to succeed, your faith is the key factor in this success.

Romans 7:22-23 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Date Honey recipe:

6-8 Medjook dates, pitted

1 cup water

Slice and take out pits, put dates into saucepan and combine with water. The water should cover the top of them so add more if necessary. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 45 minutes. Pour the whole thing into a blender and blend. Store in fridge for up to a week.

Costco has a good deal on them!

   

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 102

The fruits of the Holy Spirit won’t be within us without first having faith. Faith is the beginning point that we have to go back to over and over again. Faith can be on shaky ground or as is told in the bible seeds in rocky soil. We must be proclaiming our faith through our words and actions everyday and especially in our prayers. Abraham had so much faith in God that when God told him to move his family 800 miles to another country, he did it and when he told him to sacrifice his only son Isaac, he did it but thankfully God stopped him before Isaac was killed and gave him a lamb to sacrifice instead. Jesus displays faith and obedience on an unfathomable scale. He came from his home in heaven, from the very presence of God to become a man on earth.  Why did he seek his alone time with God? He missed him. He missed being in his very presence but he did what God asked of him. I have had a small glimpse of what it must have been like for Jesus to have left the presence of God to be in this world. When I was in the hospital back in 2003 for 4 ½ weeks hoping to keep Faith from being born to early. Those weeks were filled with Spring snow storm, one after another. The snow kept many of my friends from coming to visit me. I was mostly alone in my room day in and day out. Actually, I wasn’t alone. I was communing with God as I had never done before. Without being able to even get out of bed, I was in a situation where all I could do was pray to God, read the bible and think of Him. Many months after this experience, I realized I was suffering from grief from the loss of that extreme closeness I felt with God during my stay in the hospital. How Jesus must have grieved as well! It puts a different perspective on what Jesus did for us. He came from his home down here to be with us in our fallen world surrounded by sin. How willing would you be to leaving your home and everything you have there to follow God and do his will? Faith is a life-long pursuit. Keep at it so those fruits can ripen within.

Hebrews 11:8 By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 92

Sometimes during a sermon my thought process sticks to one word said and the rest of it becomes a blur. The word that had me going off in my own thoughts was convicted. It is likely many words we use and hear and understand the meaning but couldn’t put it into a definition. So, I got onto the handy dandy Google site and got the definition of convicted or conviction: a fixed or firmly held belief. Conviction isn’t just about belief but about the groundedness of that belief, the solid foundation of that belief, the belief that doesn’t waver in the sifting sands of this world. I remember an when an earthquake hit in southern California when I was about 16. Usually, the earthquakes always came in the early morning hours and you slept right through them so this was my first experience of the ground beneath me shifting in this jolting rolling motion. I was drying my hair in the bathroom when it hit and immediately tried to get to the doorway where we were always taught you would be safer if the building/house collapsed. The ground was not what it always was. It was all over the place and walking those 4 feet the doorway seemed to take an eternity and be the greatest of challenges. By the time I made it to the doorway, the earthquake has stopped and my emotions bubbled over into a torrential rain of tears. It was hard walking those few feet with the shifting foundation below me which is what is like when our spiritual foundation is not solid. Would you rather walk on a solid surface or in a jungle where there may be quicksand in any step you take or on an icy driveway where you slip and fall? I want my walk to be on solid ground and that solid ground comes from the one and only Jesus and the Word of God. How convicted am I of what I believe? I can honestly say that my convictions have been on shaky ground at times but the more I am in his Word and working on living out the Word within my life the more I feel the foundation getting stronger. I think it will always be a life-long process of working on keeping the foundation strong and building it stronger but that is where the Spirit will help us in giving us patience, perseverance and hope to keep going, keep fighting the fight, keep walking the walk.

Romans 4:18-22 Against hope Abraham believed in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations according to the pronouncement, “so will your descendants be.” Without being weak in faith, he considered his own body as dead (because he was about one hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver in unbelief about the promise of God but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God. He was fully convinced that what God promised he was also able to do. So indeed it was credited to Abraham as righteousness.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 69

I know a young lady at my work who is suffering from chronic migraines. She told me she has had them since she was 12 years old. They have gotten worse in the last month and it seems almost anything she eats triggers one. She’s been to doctors and tried acupuncture but so far nothing is helping. As I talked with her about this I wanted her to know that despite the pain she is loved by an awesome God. God lead me to the story of the woman who has been bleeding for many years who came up to him in a crowd just wanting to touch any part of him. She touched the edge of his cloak and was healed. The pain and troubles we go through in life are used by God to mold us, change us and lead us to Him. If it is God’s will my young friend will be healed but in the meantime I have to let God use me to guide her towards him. So, I pray for the fruits of the Spirit to be filled up within me that the hope that is in Christ will be shown to her.

Mark 5:25-34 A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” You see the people crowding against you, his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and trembling with fear told him the whold truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 59

Faith is a crucial part of being fed the fruits of the Spirit. Without faith, we are trying to go it alone. I have considered my faith to be strong but it can be stronger, it can encompass every part of my life. If I have faith that God will provide for me all my needs in body, soul and spirit than I can be truly walking in the Spirit. The only way to do that is to be in the Word everyday, praying everyday because without daily relationship with the Lord we will forget and try going it alone again and again. God is God and I am not. I have to be dependent upon God for everything. He is my provider, protector, counselor, friend and Father. I pray we can all start looking to God for our every need and have complete faith in Him.

Psalm 90:1-2 Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 47

Yesterdays’ awakening has showed me how the evil one is playing on my fears especially in times of trouble like when I am in pain from my shoulder. The antidote to fear is faith. My faith wavered and that let in the evil one to use my own temperament weakness of my emotional self against me. Recognition of the issue is the first step in turning my weakness into a strength, my fear into faith. I see now that faith is not only about believing in Jesus; it is trusting in Him in all things, everything, 100%. That is not something I am doing. We are all works in progress and so for my continued growth I have to learn to trust God in and for everything. I have to fix my eyes on Jesus and let Him work on me and give me what I am lacking. Despite all this trouble that my selfish sin created of wanting my camera found and my joy back, I am feeling glad in that I am learning that I can overcome my weaknesses within me with the Lord’s help. Joy in the Lord is what the Holy Spirit can give us.

Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 41

My mind has been in turmoil lately with all the medical bills coming in and more physical therapy needed in the weeks ahead. I had hoped to begin my studies to become a Christian Life Coach and Counselor at the first of the year but my current circumstances are telling me that it is not the time. Without the money to get started and the right frame of mind, I am fighting with the idea that it’s not about my timing but God’s timing. I have to have faith and the patience to wait for God’s will to be done. The money will come, my shoulder will get better, my attitude will be ready to learn in His time. He’s trying to tell me it’s not never it’s just not yet. So I have been calling on the Holy Spirit to help me with my struggle, to give me the faith and the patience to wait.

Colossians 1:10-11 We pray that you will lead a life that is worthy of the Lord. We pray that you will please him in every way. So we want you to bear fruit in every good thing you do. We want you to grow to know God better. We want you to be very strong, in keeping with his glorious power. We want you to be patient. Never give up. Be joyful as you give thanks to the Father.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 22

This last verse of 1 Corinthians 13 is probably one of the most known: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. My home, like many homes, has these three words displayed in a decorative way. I picked mine up at a garage sale and was thrilled to get them for only a couple of bucks and got them up on the wall at home as soon as possible. I am so a “word” person so having them on my wall meant so much. It is not only a reminder to me but my family and everyone who comes into our home.  These three words are the core of our Christian faith with love being the absolute central part that everything else revolves around. If something seems amiss in your life or you are feeling stuck, take a look at the core of you and your beliefs. Is love shinning out of your center? Or has it been pushed outward and has sin taken root in your center? Just as the Sun is the key to our solar system and our life on Earth, love is the key to our relationships with each other and our amazing God. Have you ever looked up the word “love” in the concordance of your bible. There are over 300 verses regarding love. Love is the most written about topic in the bible. Love is everything. God is love.

1 John 4:16b God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 7

You know the phrase “love is blind”?  This phrase came to my mind early this morning as I was tossing around in bed trying to go back to sleep and catch a few more zzz’s.  But my brain had to think more on it, so here I am writing about it rather than sleeping in.  This “love is blind” phrase refers to being so in love that you don’t see a person’s faults or differences. So does this phrase apply to loving God? I say, yes it does. Now God has no faults, he is perfect; so it is not a being blinded to this kind of thing but rather being blind in love towards God is letting go of all the unanswerable questions that the devil wants to plague you with that will make you question God and his love.  So if we are truly filled with love from the Holy Spirit, we should be “blind” to these unanswerable questions and love God with faith. So if those questions have been coming to your mind; the why would God…questions, than it is time to pray and focus on love and faith asking for the Holy Spirit to fill you up so much so that those questions don’t matter. 

Father, I am sorry that questions about who you are and what you do put a wedge between us.  Your love for me is without question. You love me no matter what. You have a blind-faith kind of love for me. I want to have that kind of love for you.  Holy Spirit, fill me up with such love that all the unanswerable questions are banished from my mind and only love for my awesome God is throughout me body, soul and spirit. With you all things are possible. Amen.

Romans 8:37-39 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 357

How did I get so blessed to have the husband I have? He has always been a tremendous support to me, showing his love and caring. In terms of love languages, I think he likes to give love by his acts of service. I see this in him everyday but it is especially evident when like yesterday I was feverish from fighting off some virus, dealing with the shoulder pain and the after affects of my work. He tells me “sit down and relax” and is up and getting me anything I need all evening. I am just so thankful to God for my husband and so thankful to be able to be a witness to seeing him grow and mature in his faith. It is a privilege to be able to walk along side him in this journey of our lives.

1John 4:12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.  

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 313

Thanks to getting my focus back on the Lord, he clearly spoke to me yesterday. I have been thinking of my calling as my dream job or my new career and have been looking at the schooling of it as such but God wants me to focus on the calling of counseling others.  I had been thinking of it as a career but it is a calling and I am to worry no more about getting into another career but just studying on how to counsel others. God told me it all comes down to faith. Just have faith in him and do what he is calling you to do. I feel much more at peace now about it all. The word of God can bring us the healing and growth we need and that God wants for us. So my focus will continue to be on the Word of God and I will let him lead me.

Galatians 1:15 Paul writes, I want to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up.  I did not receive it from any man, nor wa I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 184

I was reading from a chidren's bible story book at bedtime last night to my daughter. We read about David and Goliath. I know that I have heard in sermons about how the old testament is a foreshadowing of what comes in the new testament with Jesus. I was reminded of this last night when I read this story and saw the word "overcome". David had overcome the Philistine, Goliath. He won and he did it without a sword. The devil is the Goliath in the new testament. Jesus overcomes and is victorious over the devil not by sword but because of his love for his father and us. The jewish people at the time were thinking that Jesus came to do real battle and take over as ruler but they missed the foreshadowing of their own King David. David overcame because of his faith in God and Jesus overcomes satan because of his love for God and us. Faith and love will be victorious in the end. This is the truth that brings us so much hope. Through our faith and love for our savior and the Father, we, too can be victorious. I know competition can fuel people's motivation but we don't need to compete. We have already won. What we need to do is let other's know that they too can have that hope and win over sin and satan when they believe in Jesus. So although the final battle in the war is won, we need to keep letting God work through us to bring more soldiers of Christ into the realm. David and Jesus won by faith and love. They are the examples of how we should win over the lost. Does your faith and love for Christ shine out to all around you?
1 Samuel 17:37, 45, 50 David says, "The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. " David said the the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, who you have defied.  So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 139

I hate that insecure feeling I get when my bank account goes below a certain limit. It's a reminder to me that I have spent too much and probably not as wisely as I should have. It's a fear that we all probably have dealt with from time to time. But our God is a god of blessings and abundance. He loves us and will take care of us. Jesus tells us this when he says to look how the the birds of the air are fed and without worry and how the lily of the field is growing and beautiful and how much more God will take care of us whom he loves. As I prepare to make one more payment towards something and know that it will put me under my limit, I am going to be proactive and choose to believe that God will take care and I have nothing to worry about. Part of conquering our fears, I have learned is to be aware of them, pray to the Lord for courage and trust God fully. Lord, you will fill me with faith and courage to conquer this fear and all my fears. Thank you for giving me the faith and courage to overcome. Amen.
Matthew 6:26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?